A league source says that the Miami Heat have convinced forward James Jones -- who they just bought out two weeks ago to clear additional cap space for LeBron James and Chris Bosh -- to return to the Heat next season. Terms of the new deal were not immediately available. Miami bought out the final three years of Jones's five-year, $23 million deal, paying approximately $1.8 million to Jones this year to get out of the rest of his old deal, which would have paid him $4.65 million next season. The savings gave the Heat enough cap space to convince James and Bosh to take less than maximum deals to join Dwyane Wade next season. The 29-year-old Jones had played his last two seasons in Miami but was injured for large stretches of the last two seasons. When healthy, Jones has been a strong 3-point shooter, including a career-high 44 percent from behind the arc in 2007-08 with Portland. He would provide Miami with a solid role player who could relieve either Wade or James at either wing position. After using the team's remaining cap space to sign free agent Mike Miller and re-sign forward Udonis Haslem, Miami can only offer veteran minimum contracts to other players as it fills out its roster. A seven-year veteran like Jones would be eligible for a minimum of $1.146 million next season. The Heat signed former Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas to a two-year, $2.8 million deal earlier this week, with a player option for the second year, and agreed to terms with veteran center Joel Anthony, who had opted out of his old contract before the July 1 start of free agency. http://www.nba.com/news/features/aldridge.2010.freeagency/
