Paige Bueckers Is No Longer Dating Azzi Fudd. Here’s What Else They Want Everyone to Know.

Paige Bueckers announced on Friday that she and Azzi Fudd are no longer dating and haven’t been for some time. The announcement comes over a month after the Wings were knocked out in the first round of the WNBA playoffs, with Bueckers and Fudd—who’s recovering from a season-ending knee injury—capping off their first year together in Dallas.

Bueckers joined Fudd’s podcast, Fudd Around and Find Out, for the first time and made a joint announcement with Fudd about their relationship status.

“We’re not together anymore. It’s been—for anybody wondering, even though we don’t have to share—but it’s been a while. It’s been over a year,” Bueckers said. “And to share that because everybody’s gonna be like, ‘Oh my god, they’re teammates, how is this going to work?’ We were not together before she got drafted. So all of those narratives can go to bed. She was not drafted because she was my girlfriend. She was drafted because she deserved it. She’s an amazing human, amazing basketball player. And we’re still friends. We’re still cool.”

Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd announce they have broken up

“She was not drafted because she was my girlfriend.”

(via @fuddaroundpod) pic.twitter.com/Br39SOvqdC
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) November 6, 2026

Bueckers then went on to address the negativity and harassment she and Fudd have faced this season, and explicitly “condoned” hate and any kind of toxic behavior from the Wings fanbase and the larger WNBA community.

“There’s a whole list and notes of things that I would love to address if I had the time or the energy. But I think, and Azzi can agree to this, just to start by saying like, we don’t stand for hate of any kind,” continued Bueckers. “Putting people down to lift us up individually, together. Any negative nature of that kind, we don’t associate with that. We don’t condone that. If you’re using our names and our image to spread that, that’s not who we are. And that’s not what we’re about.

“If you support us, why would you hate on our teammates? Why would you hate on our friends? Why would you hate on our family? Why would you just tear people down to lift us up? That’s never been something we’ve stood for. ... We’ve seen a lot of negativity, we’ve seen a lot of hate, we’ve had stuff sent to us, we’ve had stuff sent to our family, our friends. I hate that we have to address this, but just to control the narrative, there’s been some crazy things said about us.”

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Paige Bueckers takes a stand against toxic WNBA narratives, sends clear message to Wings’ fanbase

Bueckers appeared to allude to behind-the-scenes online vitriol from Wings supporters in particular, but didn’t give any specific examples.

Back in August, Dallas Hoops Journal’s Grant Afseth shared screenshots of threatening and harassing messages he received on social media in response to his coverage of the team. Afseth has since moved off the Wings beat and said he will no longer report on the Wings in person. His decision to step away didn’t go unnoticed, as Dallas coach Jose Fernandez sent him a powerful message of solidarity at a press conference.

“Since even before I got here in Texas, there was a certain gentleman who really took a lot of pride in covering this team,” Fernandez said. “A very talented reporter. Passionate, talented, prepared. And it’s really sad that he’s not in this room like he should be. Because what he went through, nobody who covers any sports team should go through. It’s really disappointing.”

Jose Fernandez closes his press conference with a statement in support of @DALHoopsJournal’s Grant Afseth, who recently stepped away from the heat after receiving harassment for his coverage.

“Nobody should go through what he went through.” pic.twitter.com/lOqi8GIa2b
— Drake (@DrakeKeeler) August 13, 2026

During Bueckers’s roughly four-minute announcement on the podcast, she made clear that her relationship with Fudd would remain “professional,” as it has been for a year-plus. After the Wings selected Fudd, Bueckers’s former UConn teammate and rumored girlfriend at the time, with the top overall pick last April, controversy swirled around Dallas’s No. 1 choice. (Olivia Miles, who went No. 2 to the Lynx, won Rookie of the Year this past season.)

Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Sherrington asked Fudd in her introductory press conference whether she was still dating Bueckers, and if so, how they would “negotiate that dynamic as pro teammates.” The Wings’ PR team shut the question down, raising a lot of online hullabaloo over whether that was the right call. Two weeks later, Bueckers cleared the air in her own press conference and stated that her personal relationship with Fudd is “nobody’s business but our own.”

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Bueckers also cautioned fans about developing a parasocial relationship with their idols and insisted that no matter what the future holds, she and Fudd will continue to put their WNBA careers first.

“Sometimes in life there are just seasons. And sometimes two people are just at different points of their life. We still support each other, we’re still gonna be great friends, we’re still gonna be great teammates, we’re gonna be professionals. We are still gonna have other friends. We will eventually move on. We will continue to be outside and be lit and have a good time, so we should not get punished for that as well.

“... At the end of the day, we still care about each other, we want the best for each other. And all the negative things can be put aside, and you don’t need to overanalyze everything.”

In Bueckers and Fudd’s first season together, the Wings soared to a 27–17 record (a massive improvement from their dead-last 10–34 record in 2025), with plenty of credit owed to their fortifying free-agent acquisitions, including Alanna Smith and Jessica Shepard. Under first-year coach Fernandez, Dallas made the playoffs as the No. 7 seed but was eliminated in the first round by the No. 2 seed Valkyries, who went on to win the WNBA title.

Bueckers and Fudd, who both battled through injuries before winning an NCAA title together with the Huskeis, share a special, years-in-the-making chemistry on the court that not many other WNBA duos can boast. Their seamless dynamic and understanding of each other’s games should only strengthen in the future—as friends and teammates, and nothing more.

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