Welcome to a special edition of the Athletic NBA Daily.

I'm Esparahini.

Join by my guy, Bryce Simon, co-host of the Pistons Pulse.

You might know him as Motor City Hoops on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it. Also, co-host of the Pistons Pulse. You might know them as Motor City Hoops on X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it.

Also, co-host of the Game Theory podcast with San Vecini. Look, Bryce, I don't know about you.

A lot of people are going to be focused on the playoff race, the race to the top, as some might say.

But me, as a person who covers the Toronto Raptors, I'm focused on the race

towards the bottom, the seller dweller's race. That's what I am focused on, which is the tank race.

And since you do such a great job of covering the NBA draft, I figured we'd have you on to talk

about the draft and everything that's happening. March Madness is around the corner. Obviously,

you know, everybody's going to be focused on some of the stars that might be in that tournament.

But I wanted to start it off with the guy that everybody is talking about, which is Cooper

Flag. And I think general consensus coming into this year was that he was the number one guy.

And I would imagine so far the consensus is that that he was the number one guy. And I would imagine so far,

the consensus is that he's still the number one guy. But he kind of scared a lot of people

recently when he said that, man, maybe there's a chance I could stay and keep playing college.

And, you know, I kind of like this. This isn't a bad deal. How do you feel about his comments

about potentially

staying an extra year in college? Yeah, first off, this is my fifth year doing Pistons work,

and this is the first year. I am not part of the Teng Cray's conversation. And so I'm glad

that you want to talk NBA draft and brought me on because the Pistons Pulse will not be talking

NBA draft, maybe some second round prospects as it looks like their pick will convey. Yeah. So this is interesting. I'll be honest with you, S. I don't know how much credence I've given it. Like I'm like, there's no way he's really going to turn down being the number one pick. Listen, if that's what he wants to do, like if he loves college, he loves being the guy at Duke and all of that, you know, my immediate thought was money. And I wonder if Duke could, I almost think Duke could match what his first year salary would be in the NBA. Like do you think I I wonder like that's like 11.

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