{"id":225409,"date":"2025-08-12T00:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T00:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/225409\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T00:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T00:50:20","slug":"report-heat-working-out-athletic-big-kai-jones-hot-hot-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/225409\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Heat working out athletic big Kai Jones &#8211; Hot Hot Hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-8-11-1.52PM-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Kai Jones\" class=\"wp-image-10934\"  \/>Kai Jones, 24, is entering his fourth NBA season after playing 40 games last season with the Clippers and Mavericks. (Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n<p>The Miami Heat are working out free agent big man Kai Jones, NBA insider Chris Haynes <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChrisBHaynes\/status\/1955005443241304356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">first reported<\/a> Monday. <\/p>\n<p>Jones, 24, is one of the most athletic big men on the market. In 40 combined contests with the Los Angeles Clippers and Dallas Mavericks last season, he averaged 5.0 points and 3.1 rebounds in 11.7 minutes per game.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Free agent F\/C Kai Jones is working out for the Miami Heat today, league sources tell me. The 2021 first-rounder remains a young, athletic prospect. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SrLM8s4KpT\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/SrLM8s4KpT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisBHaynes\/status\/1955005443241304356?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 11, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Heat have one roster spot available and are nearly $2 million <a href=\"https:\/\/www.capsheets.com\/miami-heat-cap-sheet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">above the luxury tax.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Sportando\u2019s Allesandro Maggi reported that Jones was \u201cclose\u201d to signing with Virtus Bologna in Italy. Though Andrea Calzoni <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/andrea__calzoni\/status\/1954919868614287596?s=46\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">reported <\/a>Monday that he has a \u201cverbal\u201d agreement to sign there.<\/p>\n<p>However, Calzoni notes that Jones has a \u201cdeadline\u201d to get a contract from an NBA roster.<\/p>\n<p>The former No. 19 overall pick is entering his fourth NBA season. Should the Heat sign him to the veteran minimum, he would cost roughly $2.3 million on the team\u2019s cap sheet.<\/p>\n<p>He could also sign an Exhibit 10 with the hopes of fighting for a roster spot in training camp. <\/p>\n<p>Jones has never played more than 46 games in a single season. In 107 career games \u2014 including six starts \u2014 he\u2019s averaged 3.5 points and 2.4 rebounds. On a per-75 possession basis, he\u2019s averaged 12.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.8 blocks.<\/p>\n<p>Miami does not have any reliable backup big options outside of their two primary centers, Kel\u2019el Ware and Bam Adebayo. It\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/2025\/07\/08\/miami-heat-norman-powell-trade-need-frontcourt-ware-adebayo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">big need<\/a> \u2014 figuratively and literally.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.<\/p>\n<p>To check out our other content, click\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter\/X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hothothoops?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hothothoops?fbclid=PAAaZK-uxa3cMPUQcM2z6aGmK3faJ-G1R7YKtEOcPJNPO4VwfOvw1epBIoCyk_aem_Ad_aZ7zQwWkfVN5rHfd0UkIWrYEnU4j4Ulz0SRK__Qt1738L-NeQ3cZC5voFks7V6K8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our YouTube channel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/hothothoops\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kai Jones, 24, is entering his fourth NBA season after playing 40 games last season with the Clippers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[18527,5340,7,144,3948,5341,9616,38911,38912,38913,38914,38915,38916,295,189,3953,5343,3881,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-225409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-2025-heat-offseason","9":"tag-2025-miami-heat-offseason","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-heat","12":"tag-heat-news","13":"tag-heat-offseason","14":"tag-kai-jones","15":"tag-kai-jones-heat","16":"tag-kai-jones-miami-heat","17":"tag-kai-jones-news","18":"tag-kai-jones-work-out","19":"tag-kai-jones-work-out-heat","20":"tag-kai-jones-work-out-miami-heat","21":"tag-miami","22":"tag-miami-heat","23":"tag-miami-heat-news","24":"tag-miami-heat-offseason","25":"tag-miamiheat","26":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115013053592143654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}