Reporter Shut Down After Asking Azzi Fudd About GF Paige Bueckers
Dallas Wings Shut Down Reporter After Asking Azzi Fudd About Playing With Girlfriend Paige Bueckers
The WNBA off-season has been a busy one. The players won a historic CBA agreement, giving the entire league raises, including the new rookie class. There was an expansion draft to bring players to the two new teams, the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo. Angel Reese was traded from Chicago to Atlanta, and A’ja Wilson signed the largest contract in WNBA history.
But along with evolution comes controversy. UConn star Azzi Fudd, 23, was the No. 1 pick in this year’s WNBA draft, going to the Dallas Wings. Her girlfriend, Paige Bueckers, 24, the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year, is already on the team.
And inquiring minds want to know more about the couple navigating love and basketball.
But a reporter who asked about it was shut down at the Wings’ press conference introducing Fudd to local media.
“Paige announced last year on TikTok that y’all were a couple,” the male reporter asked at the press conference. “And I’m wondering if that’s still the case and if so, have y’all talked to any other couples in the league about how they negotiate that dynamic?”
Before Fudd could answer, a rep from the Wings stepped in.
“I understand why you have to ask that question, but we’re gonna respectfully decline from commenting on our players’ personal lives,” the Wings PR rep responded.
The question has come up multiple times in early coverage of Fudd’s career. The couple first met in 2017 at a USA Basketball tryouts for the 16-and-under team. They were dating while attending UConn, where they won a national championship together in 2025.
Though rumors were rampant about their relationship, especially after Fudd sat at Buecker’s table at the 2025 draft, they only publicly confirmed they were a couple via WagTalk last July.
Bueckers and Fudd are far from the only couple playing on the same team in the WNBA. There was drama last year in the league when veteran DeWanna Bonner was signed to the Indiana Fever, but was limited in her role.
She was then traded to the Phoenix Mercury, where her fiancée, Alyssa Thomas, plays, generating controversy when it was believed that Bonner’s game suffered from the separation. Bonner re-signed with the Mercury for this season.
Bonner and Thomas were the first same-sex couple to ever appear on the cover of Slam Magazine. Natasha Cloud and Isabelle Harrington played on the New York Liberty together, as did DiJonai Carrington and NaLyssa Smith on the Connecticut Sun, before both were traded.
No one knows how playing together in the W will impact Bueckers and Fudd until it happens, but they do have a winning track record. Noted troll Jason Whitlock called the two playing together ridiculous, saying that the Wings only chose Fudd because Bueckers wanted her there.
Fudd, it should be noted, was a solid star for UConn, winning a championship last year and putting up solid numbers this season – 17.3 points, 3.1 assists, and 2.6 rebounds per game, with 2.5 steals, shooting 48.1% from the field and 44.7% from three-point range – that had her projected as the top pick months ago.
See social media’s reaction to the Wings media team stopping the line of questioning below.
