UConn guard Azzi Fudd talks after being selected first overall by the Dallas Wings in the first round of the WNBA basketball draft Monday, April 13, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Azzi Fudd entered the WNBA as the first overall pick in 2026, arriving with a national title, a reputation as one of the most efficient shooters in college basketball, and a career that had already been interrupted and rebuilt more than once.
Within hours of being drafted by the Dallas Wings, talk quickly moved on from the moment itself to how big her contract was.At $500,000 on a rookie deal, Fudd is set to earn more in her first season than any first-year player in league history, and more than some established stars were making as recently as last year. The figure sits at the intersection of two timelines: her own, which runs from UConn to Dallas, and the league’s, which has moved from modest salaries in its early years to a structure that now includes million-dollar contracts and revenue sharing.
The contract, and how quickly the numbers have moved
Fudd’s deal starts at $500,000, rising to $520,000 in 2027 and $572,000 in 2028, with a team option of $646,360 in 2029. For context, Paige Bueckers, taken first overall by Dallas in 2025, earned $78,831 as a rookie, which means Fudd’s first-year salary comes in 534 percent higher. Caitlin Clark, drafted No. 1 in 2024 by the Indiana Fever, earned $76,535 in her first season, so the gap stretches to more than five times in both cases.
It comes directly out of the WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement. From 2026, the league’s salary cap rises to $7 million, up from $1.5 million in 2025. Minimum salaries are expected to sit around $300,000, with average salaries around $600,000 once revenue is factored in. The maximum salary has climbed to $1.4 million and for the first time, players will receive 20 percent of gross league and team revenue.
That kind of change is easier to understand when placed against where the league began.
In its early seasons after 1997, there was no salary cap at all, and some players earned as little as $15,000. A cap was introduced in 2003 at $622,000 per team. It rose slowly, often lagging behind inflation, and for long stretches the business of the league did not support large jumps.The last few years altered that trajectory. Growth in audience, the visibility of star players, and the arrival of high-profile college talent pushed salaries into wider public discussion, particularly when Clark’s sub-$80,000 rookie deal became a talking point beyond basketball.
In October 2024, the players’ union opted out of the existing agreement with a simple line: “It’s Business.” The new deal that followed produced the structure Fudd is entering.Set against last season, the change is hard to miss. Her minimum salary in 2026 will be higher than what an eight-year veteran such as Kelsey Mitchell earned on a super-max deal in 2025.
The player Dallas is getting
Fudd is a 5ft 11in shooting guard whose game centres on shooting range, off-ball movement and spacing.
In her final college season at University of Connecticut, she averaged 17.3 points per game and shot 44.7 percent from three-point range. Across her time there, she finished with a free-throw percentage of 92.5 percent, the highest in the programme’s history.In 2025, she was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA women’s tournament as UConn won the national championship. During the 2025–26 season, she started 39 games and led Division I in total three-pointers made.Her time in college did not run uninterrupted. Between 2019 and 2024, she dealt with a series of knee injuries and a foot issue, which limited how often she could play and how much continuity she could build alongside Paige Bueckers. Both arrived at UConn as top-ranked recruits and spent four years in the same programme, building a partnership that was expected to define that era, but they ended up sharing roughly a season and a half on the court.
Even late in the draft process, Fudd was not universally projected to go first overall. Players such as Olivia Miles, Awa Fam and Lauren Betts were linked to Dallas in different projections. The decision, when it came, was described internally as settled.Speaking in a post-draft Zoom press conference on April 13, 2026, general manager Curt Miller said: “I will tell you that Azzi was our pick, is our pick. But the free agency success in the post made it crystal clear.”Head coach Jose Fernandez pointed to what she brings on the floor. “She was a right fit for this team. She was the right fit for the locker room,” he said. “She brings what this team needed in regards to spacing, her quick release, her 3-point shooting, and she’s coming from a program that is great in the locker room. They know how to win, and that’s what we want here in Dallas.”
A reunion that extends beyond the court
Fudd arrives in Dallas alongside Bueckers, extending a partnership that began at USA Basketball camps in 2017 and carried through UConn.
The two won a national championship together in 2025 and remained closely linked even when injuries limited their shared minutes.In 2025, Bueckers publicly confirmed that the two were in a relationship, something that had grown out of years of friendship. Their move to the same WNBA roster brings that connection into a professional setting for the first time.“I can’t wait. Obviously, Paige, Arike [Ogunbowale], getting to watch them and then seeing their new pieces. I’m so excited,” Fudd said on ESPN’s SportsCenter after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Dallas Wings on April 13, 2026. “I can’t wait to get there. I can’t wait to learn how to play with them, learn how they play, their style of play and how I can contribute.”
They are also, in a narrower sense, part of a first: the Wings have now drafted former college teammates No. 1 overall in consecutive years.
