Big Man, Big Deal: Roberts a Clipper : Pro basketball: But they have to give up a lot to acquire the heavyweight center and Mark Jackson in three-team deal with New York and Orlando.

A year after they could have gotten center Stanley Roberts for nothing and nearly a month after the trade was agreed to, the Clippers finally acquired him from the Orlando Magic and guard Mark Jackson from the New York Knicks in a three-team deal Tuesday. It cost them forward Charles Smith, guards Doc Rivers and Bo Kimble and a first-round draft choice.

Smith, a starter in each of his four years in Los Angeles, goes to the Knicks along with Rivers and Kimble. The Clippers add Jackson and a 1995 second-round pick from the Knicks, and Roberts, whom they passed on in the 1991 draft in favor of LeRon Ellis, from the Magic. New York sends a 1993 No. 1 pick to Orlando and the Clippers do the same, unless the worst of their two is a lottery pick. In that case, the Magic gets a No. 1 in ’94.

The deal has been in place since Aug. 28. All that remained was for Roberts to waive his veto, a right he held firm to until visiting Los Angeles last weekend. He relented Tuesday, and the deal was done.

“It wasn’t anticlimactic because Stanley didn’t make it that way,” Rivers said.

Roberts said: “There are no hard feelings toward the Magic. It was hard to swallow at first, but I’ve come to understand that this is a business and this was a business decision that they felt had to be made. I just thought the whole thing could have been handled a little better than it was.”

Orlando and New York had considered it a dead deal as recently as a week ago, while Roberts, bothered that the Magic had worked out a trade without keeping him updated, dug in his heels. The Clippers remained patient. In the end, they got what they wanted.

The deal, they say, solves several problems:

--A starting center. Olden Polynice, James Edwards and Smith handled the duty last season, but Polynice was traded to Detroit on draft day, Edwards bought out his 1992-93 contract and signed a two-year deal with the Lakers, and Smith said he did not want to play center anymore. That left the Clippers with William Bedford, an underachiever acquired from the Pistons, and rookie Elmore Spencer.

The Clippers passed on Roberts in the draft a year ago because they had to rub their eyes while scouting him to make sure he was not Benoit Benjamin. The scouting report said he was overweight and unmotivated but would play well in the second half of the season when he was in shape.

True to form, Roberts looked promising in the final few months of his rookie season, when he got down to 289 pounds.

And now? One claim is that he is at 310, although Magic players who saw him recently guesstimate it’s more like 320.

--A point guard. The Clippers had Rivers, used Gary Grant in the playoff drive, then switched back to Rivers in the first-round series against Utah. Rivers would probably have started again, but they were concerned because he turns 31 during training camp. Getting younger has become a Clipper priority.

“Pretty much for three weeks I’ve been playing the waiting game and pretty much on edge,” said Jackson, who grew up in New York and attended St. John’s before being drafted by the Knicks and becoming the 1987-88 rookie of the year and a 1989 All-Star. “But I’m very excited for the opportunity to come to the Clippers. . . . It’s sort of like a situation when I came into the New York Knicks five years ago. They’re building into a championship team.”

--Smith. He backed the Clippers into a corner by signing a one-year contract and immediately announcing he would not return after becoming an unrestricted free agent after the 1992-93 season. Faced with the option of losing a potential All-Star without compensation, a trade became almost imperative.

“You’ve got mixed emotions,” Coach Larry Brown said. “It was a tough way to turn out to have all the kids sitting and waiting to see how it will turn out. But Charles left us very little recourse. . . . He gave us only one team to chose from, so I feel really fortunate to get Mark and Stanley. Under the circumstances, I thought Elgin (Baylor, the general manager) did a fantastic job.”

The Knicks inherit the risk of Smith’s free agency, but have gained the advantage of being able to ignore salary-cap limitations to re-sign him after July 1, 1993. They are comforted by Smith’s indications that he would have joined them next summer anyway.

Clipper Notes

The Greek team PAOK, which had been trying to lure Don MacLean overseas, is instead expected to sign Cliff Levingston, most recently of the Chicago Bulls. Coach Dusan Ivkovic confirmed that PAOK had a two-year deal on the table with the former UCLA star, but that “it is now finished.” MacLean, from Simi Valley, had preferred to stay in Los Angeles anyway and could now sign with the Clippers as soon as next week. Ivkovic, who coached Yugoslavia to the silver medal at the 1988 Olympics, became interested after seeing tapes of MacLean against Duke and Arizona.

“I was expecting an answer from the States, but I know the Clippers are very, very interested in him,” Ivkovic said from Greece. “My opinion is that it is a big mistake that he does not come to Europe to play to improve himself. It was already in place for him to come here.”

Three-Team Deal

NBA statistics of players involved in trade that sent center Stanley Roberts and guard Mark Jackson to the Clippers, forward Charles Smith, guard Doc Rivers and guard Bo Kimble to the New York Knicks and two first-round draft choices to the Orlando Magic:

STANLEY ROBERTS

Season-Team G FG FT. Reb. Ast. Pts. Avg. 91-92 Orlando 55 .529 .515 336 39 573 10.4 MARK JACKSON Season-Team G FG FT Reb. Ast. Pts. Avg. 87-88 New York 82 .432 .774 396 868 1114 13.6 88-89 New York 72 .467 .698 341 619 1219 16.9 89-90 New York 82 .437 .727 318 604 809 9.9 90-91 New York 72 .492 .731 197 452 630 8.8 91-92 New York 81 .491 .770 305 694 916 11.3 Total 389 .460 .741 1557 3237 4688 12.1 CHARLES SMITH Season-Team G FG FT Reb. Ast. Pts. Avg. 88-89 Clippers 71 .495 .725 465 103 1155 16.3 89-90 Clippers 78 .520 .794 524 114 1645 21.1 90-91 Clippers 74 .469 .793 608 134 1480 20.0 91-92 Clippers 49 .466 .785 301 56 714 14.6 Total 272 .490 .777 1898 407 4994 18.4 BO KIMBLE Season-Team G FG. FT Reb. Ast. Pts. Avg. 90-91 Clippers 62 .380 .773 119 76 429 6.9 91-92 Clippers 34 .396 .645 32 17 112 3.3 Total 96 .384 .747 151 93 541 5.6 DOC RIVERS Season-Team G FG FT Reb. Ast. Pts. Avg. 83-84 Atlanta 81 .462 .785 220 314 757 9.3 84-85 Atlanta 69 .476 .770 214 410 974 14.1 85-86 Atlanta 53 .474 .608 162 443 612 11.5 86-87 Atlanta 82 .451 .828 299 823 1053 12.8 87-88 Atlanta 80 .453 .758 366 747 1134 14.2 88-89 Atlanta 76 .455 .861 286 525 1032 13.6 89-90 Atlanta 48 .454 .812 200 264 598 12.5 90-91 Atlanta 79 .435 .844 253 340 1197 15.2 91-92 Clippers 59 .424 .832 147 233 641 10.9 Total 627 .453 .786 2147 4099 7998 12.8