The Clippers apparently weren't ready to stand pat with a roster that has earned only two wins in its first 11 games, as today they agreed to send Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas to the New York Knicks in exchange for big man Zach Randolph and point guard Mardy Collins. The deal is being reported by Ramona Shelbourne of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Mobley is averaging 13.7 points per game, and was coming off his best performance of the season: a 23 point, seven steal effort against the Thunder. Tim Thomas has been relegated to coming off the bench, and has been largely ineffective for the team in that role. Zach Randolph is the prize of the deal for L.A., as he's putting up over 20 points and 12 rebounds per game, and had two straight games this season where he surpassed those numbers, going for 27 and 18 and 29 and 19 earlier this week. Mardy Collins is a point guard whose numbers are virtually nonexistent, as he's only averaged eight minutes per game for the Knicks this season.
While Randolph is a legitimate big man who can definitely produce, one has to wonder of the Clippers don't have plans for at least one more deal up their sleeve. The team is now overloaded in the front court, with Chris Kaman, Marcus Camby, and Al Thornton all being quality starters at their positions. L.A.'s bench has been its biggest weakness this season, so maybe having Camby or Thornton run with the second unit might be something that will help the team stay competitive while the starters get some rest. But even if that works out, the team is still extremely thin at the two guard and small forward spots, so it would appear that they'd need to try to swing someone (Kaman's been rumored; Camby would be more likely) to try to shore up one of those positions.
For the Knicks, this was their second deal of the day, making it fairly clear that the team is dumping salaries to position themselves to be players for some big name free agents in the future. Earlier, the team dealt Jamal Crawford to the Golden State Warriors for Al Harrington. After dealing Randolph to the Clips, the team will have a whopping $33 million dollars in cap space to play with by the time the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh all hit the free agent market in 2010.
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