Human Victory Cigar

Friday December 29, 2006 2:58PM

At approximately 0:00 of 3OT on December 27th, 2006 the Detroit Pistons Defense officially passed away. (Continued)

Matt Dery is the Sports Director at WDFN 1130 AM, the Detroit Pistons’ flagship radio station. The 33 year old Pepper Pike Ohio native and Syracuse University graduate has been with WDFN for 10 years after working for WHK Radio in Cleveland.

Matt has been the radio voice of the University of Detroit Mercy Titans for the past 9 years and is a die-hard Cleveland Indians fan.

The first time I emailed Matt was during the opening round of the 2006 Playoffs. The Pistons were playing the Milwaukee Bucks and had just lost Game 3 on the road prompting me to fire off a frustrated email to what sounded like a sympathetic voice on my portable radio. Since that time, we’ve traded post game correspondence which lead to my request for an interview.

“The Diesel” accepted, answering questions about himself, his career and the Pistons. (Continued)

This may be a little premature considering the team’s recent success and the deadline not being until February next year but with more players entering the trade pool after December 15th, let’s explore where we stand.

Disclaimer: It’s not about whether or not we should make a trade. It’s a valuable exercise to evaluate our assets as well as watch which players gain and lose stock as the deadline approaches.

Just for the sake of rating each player’s staying power we can separate them into three categories:

1. Most likely to be moved
2. Maybe if the price is right
3. Hard to move or is a valuable long term asset (Continued)

Twenty games in the 2006/2007 edition of the Detroit Pistons are four games worse than last year at this time with a record of 13 up and 7 down. That’s good enough for the eighth best record in the league and second best, behind the upstart Magic, in the East. Eleven of the first twenty have been at home and the team has one of their two West Coast trips under their belts.

There have been some bad losses, most notably against the Bobcats and the Blazers, but also some quality wins against Houston, Miami, and Dallas. There have been a few close losses, Utah, New Orleans, and Portland, that could have gone either way.

Offensively there have been some big changes in how the team plays. A small ball lineup (if you can count the 6’ 9” Prince with his Manute Bol wingspan as small) has been introduced and has played well (#3 below). However, the most productive lineup has been the four remaining starters with Dale Davis. Davis brings the same kind of game as Ben Wallace (though certainly less of it) and it seems the team still feels most comfortable with that kind of center on the floor. (Continued)

As I watch the my20 Detroit broadcasts, it is obvious that the Pistons are back to ticket sales circa 2000/2001. Struggling to sell themselves in a market saturated with sports success. This in itself is not very surprising. For the last 4 years Ben Wallace has been the image of the Detroit Pistons. Undrafted, hard working, all heart. And now that he is gone, forecasts must be adjusted and marketing strategies revised.

Of course, nothing stokes the passions of a Detroit basketball fan like a monstrous block and those passions manifest themselves in fan noise, clicks of the turnstile, hotdog and beer purchases. If you thought Ben walked for $12 million more than the Pistons were willing to pay, consider that the Pistons thought that losing Ben was going to cost them less than $12 million dollars over 4 years in tickets, merchandise and sponsorship revenue. (Continued)