So, Azzi Fudd’s debut was today and look, I’m going to be brutally honest with Azzi Fudd about this. Azzi Fudd, first of all, should have never been the number one overall pick. It’s not her fault she’s the number one overall pick. It’s absolutely not her fault that a team took her because she did well at UConn.
It’s not her fault. If the Wings had the sixth pick and took Azzi Fudd with the sixth pick, there would be no pressure to start her. She wouldn’t be starting. There’d be no question about it that she wouldn’t be starting. And now there is going to be this pressure for her to be Rookie of the Year and to overperform.
I’m going to be honest. If Azzi Fudd takes more than two dribbles, she’s not doing anything. She is a wide-open spot-up shooter who can one dribble into a pull-up midi. She will not take a layup. She will not shoot free throws because she doesn’t draw contact well. Teams manhandle her off the ball. She won’t shoot free throws.
I don’t even know if she’s a fifth option. I don’t know what the rating has. Because they looked bad when she was on the floor and defensively, she is going to be a possible WNBA defender. I don’t think people understand how hard the gap in defense is.
Celeste Taylor was a Defensive Player candidate in college and she came in and was getting cooked in the WNBA. Azzi Fudd looked uncomfortable on the floor. Again, rookies that I feel have looked uncomfortable, we didn’t see her reps against the third stringers. Maybe she would look much better against the third stringers.
Maybe she would look better in that scenario. But she doesn’t go to the basket. She doesn’t back cut that well. She doesn’t back cut really that well at all. Again, she made a layup, which is big, I guess. She barely ever made them in college. And she had a pull-up in the first possession of the game.
But I’m going to be completely honest. She did not look comfortable. She doesn’t look comfortable with the ball in her hand. And it’s not like she’s this great creator where she would look great with the ball in her hand. She doesn’t look comfortable.
There is a big difference, in my opinion, between being good with the ball in your hand and being comfortable. There’s a baseline level of comfort you have to be to be a really good player at the pro level. To be a really good pro, there’s a baseline level of comfort even if you’re an off-the-ball player that you have to be to be a really good guaranteed starter.
By the way, I’m not trying to say that Azzi Fudd isn’t somebody that’s going to play or that’s going to be a bad pro. Because she’s not. She’s going to be a really good pro. The problem is what level do you put Azzi Fudd at just as a player?
In a redraft, do you project her to be better than Flau’jae? No. If Flau’jae reaches her potential, is Flau’jae going to be better? Yes. I think nearly everybody will agree with that statement.
Is Olivia Miles going to be better than Azzi Fudd? Almost certainly. Is Aliyah Boston going to be better than Azzi Fudd? Aliyah Boston might be better than Azzi Fudd today. She might be better than Azzi Fudd today. Aliyah Boston’s 19. Azzi Fudd’s 24. It is not long until she turns 24. She turns 24 during this season.
So, I think there’s a lot of pressure when it comes to Azzi Fudd because she was that number one overall pick. And it’s a weird one where she’s being judged as a number one overall pick in a league where back-to-back-to-back number one overall picks have been all-stars as rookies.
If you take out Charli Collier, the thing with Charli Collier was that it was a COVID year. Everybody had an extra year of eligibility. It was a really bad draft class. So, you take out Charli Collier, the list of number one overall picks goes, off the top of my head, from Candace Parker.
You could even go before Candace Parker, but it’s Candace Parker, Angel McCoughtry, Tina Charles, Maya Moore, Nneka Ogwumike, Brittney Griner, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, Sabrina Ionescu, Charli Collier, Rhyne Howard, Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark, and Paige Bueckers.
Tina was an all-star. Obviously injuries and stuff with Tina. But outside of Tina Charles, and I still don’t even think she might not be Tina level, Azzi will probably be the second worst number one overall pick in 20 years. And the number one is the Anthony Bennett of number one overall picks in Charli Collier.
That’s kind of where it becomes really tough for Azzi to live up to the expectations. Because realistically, she has to be that number one overall pick. And if she’s not Rookie of the Year, again, the last time a Rookie of the Year went to someone that wasn’t the number one overall pick and was healthy is Jackie Young losing to Napheesa Collier.
That is the last time that happened. It’s not common. And I don’t think she’d be one of the favorites for winning Rookie of theYear.
Anyway, I just think she looks very uncomfortable with the ball right now. And I think this is one of these things where if she’s a ninth pick, nobody is overanalyzing her game.
I saw a tweet saying, “Is Zaza James better than Azzi?” and people were saying, “Don’t joke.” But if Azzi Fudd didn’t go back for a super senior year, when Azzi Fudd did four years in college just like Zaza James did four years in college, they were both projected to be in around the same range.
Azzi was expected to go as high as five and as low as maybe nine or 10. But Zaza James was projected to go between six and 12. They were rated really similarly coming out of their senior seasons.
And if Zaza James did a super senior season, she would have cooked. Zaza James is the better player. Not by much. I don’t know if when it’s all said and done they’ll have better careers, but today Zaza James is the better player.
Azzi Fudd on the Dallas Wings is the seventh or eighth best player on this team. Maybe she’ll figure it out quicker than I personally think and she’ll become the third or fourth best player halfway through the year. Maybe it might take till the end of the year before she gets there.
But the pressure on her being number one is why you almost have to overanalyze her game. Because I’m being real here. She’s good, but that’s it. She’s good. She’s a really good off-the-ball player, a meh on-ball player. She’s good.
But for a number one overall pick, that shouldn’t be how we’re reacting to her.
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