Ex-Clipper Dailey Signs 1-Year Deal With Lakers

Free-agent guard Quintin Dailey, who spent the last three National Basketball Assn. seasons with the Clippers, signed a one-year, guaranteed contract with the Lakers on Tuesday.

Dailey said he would earn “in the same area” as the $450,000 he would have made if the Clippers had picked up his option for the 1989-90 season.

Dailey has averaged double-figure scoring in his seven and he was at 16.1 points while starting more games than any other Clipper guard. His scoring ability appealed to the Lakers, who plan to use him as a backup for Byron Scott at shooting guard.

“It’s an honor to play with a team that can win the championship,” said Dailey, who spent the first four years of his career with the Chicago Bulls. “I’m not here to take a position, just to help them win. I want to be established as a winner. I’ve thought of myself as that, but now maybe this will be a chance to prove it to everybody else.”

Dailey, 28, signed with the Clippers in December, 1986, after a stint in a substance-abuse rehabilitation center. He entered last season expecting to back up Reggie Williams, but moved into the starting lineup when Williams was injured and faltered.

The Clippers, hoping to make a commitment to Williams and rookies Jeff Martin and Jay Edwards, and noting Dailey’s three-game suspension last February because of his excessive weight, did not re-sign him.

“All I can say about the Clippers is that they gave me a chance to get back into the league,” Dailey said. “I’m grateful to them, and I wish them the best of luck.”

All parties declined to say if there is a weight or drug clause in the contract. Dailey underwent voluntary drug tests with the Clippers and spoke frequently at schools and to community groups, but the indignity of putting on some 25 pounds while playing an NBA schedule may stay with him in the long run, even though he was averaging 17 points a game at the time of the suspension.

“In the past, Quintin has had a problem, but we’re comfortable and confident that all the problems are in the past, including the weight,” said Mitch Kupchak, the Lakers’ assistant general manager. “He’s convinced of that, and we’re excited to get him.”

Clipper Coach Don Casey completed his staff Tuesday with the hiring of Joe Roberts and Bob Staak as assistants. They join Dave Twardzik, who was hired Aug. 31.

Roberts, co-captain of the Ohio State team that won the 1960 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. championship, spent the final two months of last season as a Clipper assistant to then-interim coach Casey. Previously, he was an assistant and director of player personnel with Golden State and played three seasons in the NBA and one in the old American Basketball Assn.

Staak has been a college head coach the last 10 years, the last four with Wake Forest and before that at Xavier in Cincinnati. He has also been an assistant at Connecticut, William and Mary, and Pennsylvania.