CHICAGO — Dallas Wings rookie Azzi Fudd dropped 30 points in the final round of the WNBA All-Star 3-point contest Friday night at Wintrust Arena, becoming the first rookie in the event’s 20-year history to take the title. Then she picked up the microphone and went hunting for bigger game.
“Steph, if you’re listening, I’ve been asking for a rematch since high school,” Fudd said. “Maybe this is our time to start figuring out a time and a place.”
The Steph in question is Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors sharpshooter who has been the NBA’s standard for range for over a decade. Fudd’s challenge wasn’t spontaneous. It was a bill that’s been collecting interest since 2018, when a 15-year-old Fudd became one of the first two girls ever invited to Curry’s SC30 Select Camp. She won the camp’s 3-point contest outright — beating every camper, boys included — and earned a head-to-head duel with Curry himself. He won, 20-16. She’s been carrying the receipt ever since.
Technically, she already collected once. At a Curry Camp tour stop in China last year, Fudd faced Curry and his brother Seth in a shootout. She knocked down four of five from deep. Steph made three. Seth made two. The score was settled, except it wasn’t, because that wasn’t television and there wasn’t a trophy.
Friday night was television. Fudd opened the final round by swishing every shot off the first rack — five clean makes, no hesitation, her feet already shuffling to the next station before the ball finished its arc. She made 20 of 26 attempts in the round, including eight of her final 10, and Portland Fire forward Bridget Carleton never threatened after missing her first three shots. Carleton finished with 19.
Fudd’s first-round 24 was enough to advance behind Carleton’s 29. Marina Mabrey, one of the pre-contest favorites, was bounced in the opening round with 18. Rhyne Howard, the only rookie before Fudd to ever reach the final round back in 2022, scored 20 and was eliminated.
The performance was the latest stop on a road that’s had more potholes than a South Side alley in March. Fudd tore her right ACL and MCL at a USA Basketball 3-on-3 tournament in 2019. Her freshman year at UConn, a foot injury shelved her for 11 games. Her sophomore year, knee problems cost her 22 more. In November 2023, she tore the ACL and medial meniscus in her right knee during a practice and missed the entire season. She won a high school all-star shootout in 2021 while wearing a medical boot.
All that rehab, it turns out, was unintended preparation for a rack-shooting contest. “There was a lot of chair shooting, a lot of stationary shots,” Fudd said. “You get really good at shooting off a rack and being stationary and robotic and having your shot down to a tee.”
She called the contest “easy for me” — not a boast, she insisted, just muscle memory. Her mother, Katie Smrcka-Duffy Fudd, was a 2001 WNBA draft pick. Her father, Tim, played at American University and professionally in Europe. “My shot looks identical to my mom’s,” Fudd said.
Tim Fudd was standing near the court afterward, waiting to take pictures with his daughter. “I got nervous. First time ever,” he said. “I usually trust the work. I told her before she left the hotel, ‘just lock in.'”
Former UConn and Dallas teammates, including Paige Bueckers, watched from the sideline and doused Fudd with water after the win. She complained about her hair. The trophy came with $70,000 in prize money.
Curry has won the NBA’s 3-point contest twice, in 2015 and 2021, and beat New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu 29-26 in a cross-league shootout at the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. Ionescu holds the all-time single-round record for either league — 37 out of 40 in 2023.
Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft out of UConn, is 23. Curry is 38. The age gap is the same as it was in 2018. The shooting gap, if there is one anymore, is the question Fudd wants answered on a stage.
“If they’ll have me, I’d be honored to be here again,” she said of defending her title next year. “That’s not up to me.”
The rematch, though — that’s the one she’s already campaigning for.
Sources: