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As currently constructed, the Heat don't have a whole lot of room under the salary cap, but they may be able to fill a glaring need for outside shooting by inking James Jones, who hit 43.7% of his shots from long distance last year for the Trail Blazers. From Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

With the free-agent signing period to commence at midnight, a five-year offer has been extended to Jones, starting at $4 million for next season. The final three years of the contract would be conditional, to protect the Heat for the 2010 free-agency period.

Jones has yet to commit, but working in the team's favor is the fact that he'd be returning home -- he was born and raised in Miami and spent four years at the University of Miami before being drafted. Winderman doesn't offer up any other info about the last three conditional seasons, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict those will be team option years.

It's unclear what his arrival would mean for the rest of the roster -- certainly Dorrel Wright and Daequan Cook can't be thrilled -- but this team sorely missed having Jason Kapono and James Posey stretch the defense last year. (It also "sorely missed" having anyone stay healthy for longer than five games at a time, but that's beside the point.)

Also interesting is the news that the Heat will apparently use "part of its salary cap exemptions to sign second-round pick Mario Chalmers," which would allow them to sign him for more than the rookie minimum. With only two summer league games under his belt, he's already convinced the Heat he's the real deal, and it could be a sign that the early speculation of Chalmers starting for the Heat this year might come true. It's not often you see a second-round pick start as a rookie -- especially at the point guard position -- but Chalmers was widely regarded a as first-round-caliber talent before inexplicably falling on draft day.