The first time Brandon Payne met Azzi Fudd, the longtime NBA skills coach had no idea he was about to witness a superstar in the making.
In August 2018, Payne worked alongside 11-time NBA All-Star Stephen Curry to assemble 26 of the best high school basketball players in the country for the fifth annual SC30 Select Camp in San Francisco. When the 15-year-old Fudd stepped into the gym just months after completing her freshman year of high school, Payne didn’t think she’d be able to keep up.
Payne, who has been Curry’s personal trainer since 2011, had valid reasons. Fudd wasn’t just one of the first girls ever invited to the prestigious clinic alongside Cameron Brink, then the No. 3 recruit in the Class of 2020. She was also the youngest on a roster loaded with future NBA talent. Ten of the boys in attendance went on to be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft, including 2020 No. 1 pick Anthony Edwards and No. 2 pick James Wiseman. Nine are still active in the league.
But none of them stand out in Payne’s memory the way Fudd does. Eight years later, he can recall her first offensive possession in a camp scrimmage like it happened yesterday.
“She had the ball in her right hand on the right side of the floor. She made a move, went between her legs, got to the nail area and pulled up and hit a jumper,” Payne said. “I was like, ‘My goodness.’ We’re putting you in a position where you have to hop in there and compete with really, really good players, and she was just as natural and comfortable as could be. That was probably the most impressive thing to me.”
Mastering the ‘injury skill’
It wasn’t the first time Fudd overcame odds stacked against her, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Since that weekend in 2018 launched her into a national spotlight, the UConn women’s basketball star has become an expert at proving herself in the face of adversity.
Eight months after dominating at Curry’s camp, Fudd suffered the first major injury of her career when she tore her right ACL during a 3-on-3 game at USA Basketball’s U18 nationals. She arrived at UConn two years later as the No. 1 prospect in the 2021 recruiting class, but a lingering foot injury sidelined her for 11 games and kept her from truly hitting her stride in her freshman season.
Fudd took off early in her sophomore campaign, averaging 24 points on 54.4% shooting over the Huskies’ first six games, but a right knee injury stifled her momentum and kept her out for most of the regular season. After an offseason of rehab, Fudd played just two games in 2023-24 before tearing her right ACL for the second time. The grueling 12-month recovery process extended through the first three games of the 2024-25 season, and then she missed three more after tweaking the knee during a December matchup with Louisville.
But Fudd made the most of her 34 appearances last year. She averaged 17.5 points plus three steals and 2.5 assists per game during the Huskies’ 2025 NCAA Tournament run, earning Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four after leading the team with 24 points, five rebounds and three steals in the national championship victory. The star guard finished the season with career-high shooting percentages, hitting 47.4% from the field and 43.6% on 3-pointers.
“I really, truly believe it’s a skill to be injured,” said Carl Bergstrom, Curry’s director of performance who helped craft Fudd’s rehab plan for the 2023 ACL tear. “It’s an art and a science, and it’s really just taking a glass half full versus a glass half empty approach. The best athletes are able to just really harness that.”
It’s impossible not to wonder what the last three years could have looked like for Fudd had she been able to prioritize development rather than rehabilitation during the months between seasons. In 2025-26, the redshirt senior will finally get a chance to find out.
“I’ve told her mother over and over again, if she ever gets to a point where she has just 12 months to worry about just getting better and not worry about rehabbing, I think you’re gonna see a huge jump in her productivity,” Payne said. “Now all we have to do is worry about getting better, so I think you’ll definitely see some benefits from that.”
It was fitting that Fudd capped her first healthy offseason in years with a return to Curry Camp this August, serving as a coach alongside Curry and members of his inner circle including Payne and Bergstrom. The Bay Area camp is now an equitable experience for the top high school prospects, hosting 17 boys and 16 girls in 2025. The UConn star, who signed an NIL deal with Curry’s SC30 organization back in 2021, also traveled to China to assist on the Curry Brand World Tour.
“My healthy summer was incredible. It was like a whirlwind, but it was great,” Fudd said after UConn’s first official practice last week. “I got to work on my body, not being in rehab but just making sure I’m feeling the best I can … It feels so long ago now. I’m like, what did I even do this summer? Moral of the story, I was in the gym.”
In between coaching clinics and appearing at events across multiple time zones, Fudd was making time for her own workouts with Curry’s team. Payne said Fudd was often on his schedule right before or after Curry’s sessions, and he puts her through the same paces as he does the two-time NBA MVP.
“I treat her exactly like Stephen, I really do. I don’t water anything down. My expectations don’t change when she’s on the floor,” Payne said. “I always tell her that my workouts with her are kind of like my vacation, because I don’t have to do a whole lot of correcting. … It’s like the most relaxing hard workouts I get to go through. I just enjoy it because she’s so smooth and so programmed to work to get better.”
Much at stake in 2025-26
Fudd’s redshirt senior season comes with high stakes as she eyes becoming a likely lottery pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, and Payne said his approach with the Huskies’ star this summer focused on skills that will help her make the leap to the next level. UConn will look to Fudd more often as a primary ball handler this season as the most-experienced player in its backcourt, and the team is relying on her offensive production to help fill the void left by three-time All-American Paige Bueckers.
“Where I think that she’s growing is her ability to get open without the ball in her hands and her ability to be creative in getting open, learning how to change speeds without the ball in her hands, learning how to cut and be a threat to create opportunities for teammates,” Payne said. “To really get more comfortable with the ball in her hands, get more comfortable making decisions and making passes, that’s what I’m really looking for. That’s the biggest jump for me, is to see that comfort level improve.”
The weight room was also key to Fudd’s offseason with Bergstrom managing her training plan the same way he did her ACL recovery. Bergstrom is a self-described nerd for performance data, but said he took a holistic approach with Fudd this summer that emphasized developing power and stamina. That new conditioning will be crucial to Fudd’s goal of evolving as a “lockdown defender” this season, and it prepares her to shoulder the heaviest workload of her college career.
“It becomes less granular about looking at (things) like quad strength or quad capacity,” Bergstrom said. “We’re tracking that those variables don’t diminish … but in general, it’s creating a comprehensive plan based off of the minutes that she needs to play and how physical she needs to play. It’s just about helping build the most resilient and prepared athlete possible, because she is so skilled on the basketball court.”
Confidence is sky high
At 15, Fudd already had her almost-automatic shot and the work ethic of a veteran professional, which Payne said hasn’t changed at all in the intervening years. At 22, the biggest difference he sees in the Huskies’ star is her confidence, both in her own game and in her ability to communicate as a leader.
“She’s gone from really, really shy, quiet, almost introverted, basketball-only, and she’s grown quite a bit,” Payne said. “The confidence that you have as a young person tends to transfer right into how you play basketball. My belief in player development is that you can’t really single out very specific areas … It all works together, so her maturity as a young person has worked hand in hand with her maturity and development as a basketball player.”
Bergstrom also saw a different version of Fudd this summer, a new energy he believes will carry over as she kicks off her final college season Monday with an exhibition game against Boston College at Mohegan Sun Arena.
“The best thing is to (see her) just be able to go play freely,” Bergstrom said. “That’s such an amazing feeling that you want to embrace. Like, go focus on basketball. You’ve built up resiliency. You’ve built up your body … It’s really cool when somebody shows up and there’s just a level of confidence, there’s a joy. They know what they’re doing and they’re jumping right in.”