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)