Former first-round pick James Young has signed a contract with Israeli team Maccabi Haifa, the club announced in a press release.
The 17th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Young appeared in just 95 total games for the Celtics and Sixers during his first four professional seasons. He hasn’t appeared in a regular-season NBA game since March 2018, though he averaged 18.9 PPG and 5.1 RPG with a .424/.422/.811 shooting line in 19 contests last season for the Wisconsin Herd, Milwaukee’s G League affiliate.
Young is only 23 years old (24 next Friday), but is a long shot at this point to realize the upside that NBA evaluators saw when he came into the league out of Kentucky. Still, if he plays well in 2019-20 in Israel, perhaps he’ll have an opportunity to make it back to the NBA down the road.
Omri Casspi, Quincy Acy and Johnathan Williams are among the other NBA players who have signed with Israeli teams so far this offseason.
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