feature image photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
In anticipation of Friday’s release of three-part docuseries The Dynasty: UConn Huskies, an extremely sharp marketing strategist at Apple TV has released a clip from the film featuring Paige “Buckets” Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, The People’s Princess, speaking directly to the camera about their romantic relationship with each other. Their longtime rumored relationship was confirmed last summer via Azzi’s social media and a WAGtalk interview with Paige. However, the two have kept it quiet this year (more on that in a minute) and so this clip comes at a time when Pazzi Nation is particularly keen to receive additional content. What a surprise, what a delight, an oasis sent to us from the past, suddenly glimmering at our feet after so many miles of seemingly endless desert. Fans are ON ALERT and trying to stay calm.
In the clip, Paige recalls Azzi, who Paige had known since high school, joining the Huskies her sophomore year. “It kinda just meshed as soon as we met,” she tells the camera.
“She’s sweet. She’s genuine, she has a huge caring heart,” Paige continued atop footage of the two girls in a hot tub, doing something undoubtedly related to their athletic capacity. “We kinda felt like a spark a little bit different than what would be considered a normal friendship.”
As the film transitions to locker room footage of Paige and Azzi’s voiceover begins: “Paige and I are a couple, and everyone close to su that was important to us knew, but it was just one of those things that’s like, it’s private, not a secret, but it’s private.”
In the lead-up to Azzi’s first season in the WNBA and her selection as the #1 draft pick by Buecker’s team, the Dallas Wings, Paige and Azzi have taken a deliberate step away from the spotlight, keenly aware that every single public interaction they have with each other becomes immediate fodder for analysis, speculation, articles like the one I am writing right now and breathless TikTok fan edits.
After the draft, many losers surmised that Azzi’s selection by Dallas was due to her relationship with Paige, and there were many questions about how team dynamics might be impacted by their relationship and furthermore, if they were even still in a relationship at all. In a press conference, Bueckers told reporters that her and Azzi’s “personal relationship is nobody’s business but our own” and they’d choose what they wanted to share with the public. Furthermore, she reminded everyone that “we’ve been doing this for a long time. We have countless reps at it. We have a lot of experience at it. So we will continue to use that experience to show up and be professionals, great teammates, great leaders, the hardest workers and continue to show up and do our job and help the Dallas Wings win basketball games.”
The documentary promises a deep look inside the most dominant program in college basketball history, led by coach Geno Auriemma. The third part focuses primarily on Bueckers’ senior year at UConn, from 2024-2025, and appears to have been filmed during that same time period. It goes deep into the breakdown and rebuilding of Bueckers relationship with Auriemma and her coming into her own as a leader.
It’s interesting to consider this — the candid conversations they had about their relationship in this film probably occurred within the same six months or so as the social media posts in which they were more transparent about the relationship — before the scrutiny became too much. Were we ever so young.
Unfortunately for Dallas Wings fans, we also got bad news today — the knee pain that’s benched Azzi for the past few games is serious and she will be undergoing knee surgery, thus missing the rest of the Wings season. Fudd has been plagued by knee injuries throughout her career — she missed most of her 2022-23 season due to knee injuries, and 2023-2024 due to a right ACL and medial meniscus tear.
