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Name a classic moment from the 2000s

Name a classic moment from the 2000s

Name a classic moment from the 2000s

Funny how Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers love to put their s*x life out there, but when others have questions, they get mad. The Dallas Wings selected Azzi Fudd with the first overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft this week. At her introductory press conference, Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News asked a question. He noted that Paige Bueckers had announced on TikTok last year that the two of them were a couple, asked whether that was still the case, and asked whether they had talked to other couples in the league about how to navigate that dynamic as teammates. A Wings media representative stepped in before Fudd could answer. "I understand why you have to ask that question. But we're going to respectfully decline from commenting on our players' personal lives." The internet exploded. People called Sherrington invasive, accused him of making Fudd uncomfortable at her very first professional press conference, and said the media needs to leave women athletes alone. The Sporting News clip of the moment pulled nearly 10 million views in a day. Here is the problem with all of that: Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers made their relationship public on their own terms, in their own way, and on their own timeline. They do not get to do that and then act like the topic is off limits when someone asks about it in a professional setting. Last summer, weeks before WNBA All-Star Weekend, Fudd went viral carrying a phone case that read "Paige Bueckers' girlfriend." At the All-Star Weekend orange carpet event in Indianapolis on July 17, a WNBA Got Game interviewer asked Bueckers for a "girlfriend reveal." Bueckers looked into the camera and said "Azzi Fudd." That clip circulated everywhere. It was a moment. It was celebrated. It was intentional. That was not a private relationship that got leaked. That was two public figures choosing to share something with millions of people through social media and league-affiliated content. When you do that, you are inviting the conversation. You are telling the world this is part of your story. And when a reporter at a press conference asks a respectful, relevant follow-up about how that dynamic works now that you are professional teammates on the same roster, you do not get to treat the question like a violation. Look at what Sherrington actually asked. He did not ask anything salacious. He did not ask about their private life behind closed doors. He asked whether the relationship was still ongoing and whether they had sought advice from other couples in the league about managing it. That is a legitimate basketball question. Two people in a romantic relationship playing on the same professional team is a real dynamic that affects locker rooms, coaching decisions, minutes distribution, and team chemistry. Every front office in professional sports thinks about this. The Wings' own general manager, Curt Miller, publicly alluded to the relationship being a factor in the decision to draft Fudd. If the GM can reference it as part of the basketball calculus, a reporter can ask about it. The double standard in the reaction is hard to miss. Patrick Mahomes gets asked about Brittany at press conferences constantly. Travis Kelce spent an entire NFL season answering questions about Taylor Swift. Stephen Curry and Ayesha have been a regular topic in NBA media for over a decade. Russell Wilson and Ciara. Jalen Hurts gets asked about his girlfriend. Nobody calls those questions invasive. Nobody tells those reporters they are crossing a line. The questions are treated as normal, because they are normal. When you are a public figure and your relationship is public, the media asks about it. That is how it works. The only thing that changed here is that the couple is two women. And the discomfort people are projecting onto the situation says more about them than it does about Sherrington or his question. Treating a same-sex relationship as something too delicate to mention in a press conference is not progressive. It is the opposite. It sends the message that this relationship is different, that it requires special handling, that it cannot be discussed the way any other public relationship between athletes would be discussed. Bueckers and Fudd did not treat it that way when they announced it. They were proud and open about it. The media should be allowed to engage with it the same way. The Wings made this worse by shutting it down. If Fudd had answered the question, it would have been a 30-second exchange and the press conference would have moved on. Instead, the PR intervention turned a routine question into a national story. The clip went viral not because of what Sherrington asked, but because the Wings treated the question like it was dangerous. That framing is what created the backlash, and it is the exact framing that Bueckers and Fudd spent all of last summer working to move past. Fudd deserved better from her own organization in that moment. She is a grown woman who just became the first overall pick in the WNBA Draft. She won a national championship at UConn. She is about to be one of the faces of a franchise. She can handle a question about her girlfriend. The Wings treating her like she needed to be shielded from a respectful question about a relationship she has already discussed publicly is more patronizing than anything Sherrington said. This is not about whether athletes owe the public details about their personal lives. They do not. But when you choose to make your relationship part of your public identity, through TikTok reveals, branded phone cases, orange carpet interviews, and viral moments, you have already opened that door. A reporter walking through it at a press conference is not an ambush. It is the most predictable follow-up question in the building. Azzi Fudd and Paige Bueckers are about to be the most talked-about duo in the WNBA. They are former UConn teammates, a national championship backcourt, back-to-back number one overall picks for the same franchise, and a couple. All of that is the story. All of that is fair game. And the sooner everyone involved treats it that way, the sooner the actual basketball can be the headline.