Miami Heat working to buy out James Jones

The Miami Heat were still desperately seeking salary cap room Thursday as the hours ticked down to the NBA draft.

One day after essentially sacrificing Daequan Cook and a first-round draft pick (18th overall) in a trade with Oklahoma City that cleared $3.4 million in salary cap space, a league source told ESPN.com that the Heat were working Thursday on a buyout of James Jones' contract to further increase their financial flexibility for free agency this summer.

Jones has $15.5 remaining on his contract through 2012-13, but those final three seasons are only partially guaranteed if James is waived by June 30.

Waiving Jones would knock another $2.8 million off the Heat's salary cap for the 2010-11 season, giving them roughly $27 million to spend in free agency after July 1.

That amount would be enough to keep Wade, sign an additional maximum salary free agent -- and Heat president Pat Riley is prepared to make a strong push to sign LeBron James -- while still leaving an additional $10-11 million to spend on one or more additional free agents.



(espn.com)