Dallas’s playoff push was already fragile before Azzi Fudd’s knee trouble turned serious. The rookie guard had missed five straight games with soreness, and the Wings needed an answer before Thursday’s matchup with the red-hot Indiana Fever.
They got one Wednesday, and it wasn’t the answer anyone in Dallas wanted. The Wings announced Fudd will undergo an arthroscopic procedure on her right knee and miss the rest of the 2026 season, ending her rookie year two months early.
The surgery is scheduled for early next week in Connecticut, the state where Fudd starred at UConn before Dallas made her the No. 1 overall pick. Her last appearance came on Aug. 5 against the Washington Mystics, a game in which she managed nine points and three steals before the soreness flared up two days later.
Fudd addressed the news herself through her podcast’s Instagram account, framing the setback as part of a familiar cycle rather than a crisis.
“I know exactly what comes next: rehab, put in the work, come back,” she wrote, thanking the organization and her family for the support.
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Her rookie season still carries real weight despite the early ending. Fudd averaged 13.1 points, 1.8 assists, and 1.7 steals across 30 games, shooting 39.7 percent from three, and she set a Wings rookie record with 62 made triples. She also became the first rookie in league history to win the 3-Point Contest at All-Star Weekend. She also became the WNBA player since 2002 to reach 40 threes and 40 steals.
Her floor spacing mattered more than her raw scoring did. Dallas shot 35.5 percent from three with Fudd on the court and just 29.7 percent with her off it, a gap that widened the driving lanes for Paige Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale all season.
None of this is new territory for Fudd, unfortunately. She tore her ACL and MCL in high school back in 2019, then dealt with a string of right knee issues at UConn, including a torn ACL and meniscus in 2023 that cost her a full season. This latest procedure marks her fourth right knee surgery since that first tear.
Dallas Now Has To Hold On Without Azzi Fudd
The numbers explain why coach Jose Fernandez sounded cautious even before Wednesday’s announcement.
“The most important thing is her health in her return to play and her longevity,” he said earlier this month, well aware of what another setback would mean.
Dallas is 19-11 with Fudd in the lineup and just 1-5 without her, a split that helps explain the team’s recent slide to eighth place. The Wings still hold a 4.5-game cushion over the ninth-place Portland Fire with eight games left, but the margin for error just shrank considerably.
A likely first-round date with the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx looms if the standings hold, and Dallas has lost all four meetings with Minnesota already this season. Bueckers will need to carry an even heavier load down the stretch, and the Wings will have to find spacing answers they built around Fudd all year. Whether that’s enough to survive the postseason without her is the question Dallas now has eight games to figure out.
