Conroy for Portland’s open roster spot over Travis Diener. Conroy, who’s main flaw coming out of college was his lack of three-point range, has improved his long-distance shooting efficiency throughout his D-League career. In addition, Conroy is a solid one-on-one perimeter defender — which is the main reason why he was compared to Eric Snow by the staff at DraftExpress.com — so the Trail Blazers could’ve really used his presence on both ends of the court.

Apparently, though, the Trail Blazers brain trust — which is a term that I use loosely — went with Diener over Conroy for two main reasons. For starters, Diener is a low-usage floor spreader at the 1 on offense — while Conroy is more of a medium-usage floor general — plus, he’s careful with the rock and, as a result, commits few turnovers. Diener, in essence, is a homeless man’s version of Steve Blake, albeit a shorter version who’s even more god-awful/piss-poor at defense.

As it is, Nate McMillan gets a proverbial hard-on for dudes who play off the ball on offense at the 1; thus, a dribble-drive gunner in Jerryd Bayless — who, in all reality, is an undersized shooting guard — and a waterbug chucker in Patty Mills didn’t cut the mustard in his eyes. Oh, and even though I agree that both Bayless and Mills are fatally flawed players, Diener still isn’t the answer.

Ugh, it’s too bad that Kevin Pritchard didn’t pull the trigger for Kirk Hinrich either this season or last season. A healthy Hinrich would’ve solved all the Trail Blazers on-court problems at the 1 — both offensively and defensively, with the latter being of the utmost importance alongside a defensive sieve like Brandon Roy — yet, it wasn’t meant to be for whatever dumbass reason.

Yet, since getting Hinrich last month as a long-term solution wasn’t in the cards, the right short-term option was to sign Conroy to a ten-day contract. Alas, Conroy isn’t a stylistic fit in the rigid mind of McMillan. Oh well, there isn’t anything that I can do about it—except bitch and moan as a cathartic release.