Connor Atchley

Connor Atchley - After college, Atchley enjoyed a two year professional career, most of which was in the D-League. Included in there was a brief stop in Turkey, a couple of trips to summer league, and even a training camp gig with the Sacramento Kings. He returned to Texas in September 2011 to work as a graduate manager; it's unclear if he is still there.

Atchley's going to go back to the D-League. This seems inevitable. He will take with him the $5,000 in guaranteed compensation that Sacramento generously gave him, yet he's not an NBA calibre player, and thus he won't be sticking here. After a bad senior year at Texas that saw him try to become a specialist outside shooter in order to accommodate Dexter Pittman, whilst concurrently seeing his previously decent jumpshot completely disappear, Atchley rebounded to have a decent first professional season in the D-League, averaging 7.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 18 minutes per game for the Iowa Energy. In theory, Atchley could be like Chris Andersen with an outside jumpshot, a good help defender and (formerly) good shooter who won't do much on the interior on offense, but who will hustle and jump and make himself a nuisance defensively. However, at the moment, Atchley is just a 25 year old 6'10 230 lb foul machine without the size or strength for the physical play, and who shot 0-16 from three point range last year. Long twos and excessive fouls are not the recipe for success.

Connor Atchley

Atchley, who graduated from Texas at the same time as Abrams, screwed the pooch somewhat in his senior season and went undrafted. To his credit, he was trying to adjust his game around Dexter Pittman, which is why he ended up becoming primarily a three point shooter. But it didn't help. From there, Atchley started his first professional season in Turkey with Darussafaka, but left after only 2 games, 27 minutes and 3 points. He returned to the D-League with the Dakota Wizards and played 33 games there before being dealt to the Iowa Energy, where he played his usual irritating defense and put away the jumpshot (albeit not entirely by choice; he shot 0-14 from three in 47 D-League games).

Atchley plays good and persistent interior defense, grabs some boards and hits open shots. There's nothing to dislike. But there's also nothing that stands out.