James Young edges R.J. Hunter to make Boston Celtics roster

The Boston Celtics are keeping James Young.

According to Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, Young has survived final roster cuts and will make Boston’s 15-man roster to open the 2016-17 NBA season.

Young edged out R.J. Hunter for the final spot. The latter was waived Monday, which means Young is sticking with the Celtics for the time being.

The former Kentucky Wildcats star has yet to make a dent in the NBA, and many thought Boston would move on from him this year after two lackluster seasons.

The Celtics have failed to see much promise from Young over his first two years, most of which has been spent riding the bench. He’s shot just 34% from the field and 25% from 3-point range in his NBA career.

On draft night in 2014, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens told the media that he had Young among his top-10 prospects when Boston got him at pick No. 17. He was coming off a great freshman season at UK, and it seemed like a bright NBA career was in his future.

But Young has failed to translate his offensive game into the NBA, and he’s also been a major defensive liability thus far in his career. Despite these deficiencies, he’ll remain on a Boston team expected to be among the 2-3 best teams in the Eastern Conference this season.

And at just 21 years of age, Young still has plenty of time to find his way and become an NBA player. He may need to keep playing in the D-League to develop enough that he’s capable of reaching that level, but there’s no question the talent is there.

It’s up to Young to find a way to harness it and make an NBA career out of it, but it’s good to see Boston is giving him another chance to do so.