From SlamOnline.com:

The 6-2, 225-pound guard Fred Jones has agreed to terms with the Italian team Biella Angelico. The American has officially agreed to a one-year deal.

In 2004 Jones won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, beating out ex-champion Jason Richardson.

Jones was a member of the Indiana Pacers, the Toronto Raptors, the Portland Trail Blazers,  the New York Knicks and last season he played in Los Angeles for the Clippers.

Last season  Jones appeared in 52 games for the Clippers and totalled 7.3 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.

Another former Clipper may be looking to head overseas as well. Also from SlamOnline.com:

Former Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Clippers guard Alex Acker is looking for a new team in Europe. After an unsuccessful year in NBA, Acker wants to go back to Europe.

According to Greek media, the 6-2, 225-pound point guard is close to reaching an agreement with the Italian club Milano Armani Jeans.

Acker, 26 year-old-guard, averaged 2.9 points per game last season with the Pistons and the Clippers.

Jones was on the outside looking in once Telfair, Smith and Madsen were acquired this summer. Although short on size and skill, Jones brought a high level of energy and athleticism to the table last year for the Clippers. At only 6′2, Jones was often outsized but could never be falted for a lack of effort defensively.

Although Jones was never really in the picture for a roster spot, this move should further solidify that the 14th and final roster spot has come down to a two man battle between Steve Novak and Ramon Sessions. Novak has garnered a small amount of interest from contenders like the Nuggets and Cavaliers, who could both use an outside shooting specialist. Sessions is still being pursued by the Clippers and Knicks as well, but negotiations on all sides of the table appear to remain at a stalemate. With two viable options, Dunleavy and company are content on playing the waiting game to see who will fill the last roster spot.

Best of luck to Fred Jones as he continues his basketball career in Italy.

The Clippers extended Steve Novak a qualifying offer Tuesday, which makes him a restricted free agent. The Clippers will have the opportunity to match any contract offer made to Novak by another team. Novak’s number is $1,030,189. Given the reasonable price tag and the fact that there are only a handful of players in the league with true shooting percentages greater than 60%, it’s very likely Novak will get a bite from a team in need of some perimeter shooting.

Would the Clippers would match a significant offer for Novak’s services? That probably depends on what they get back/have to swallow in any deal they make with one of the frontcourt guys. According to sources, negotiations with Memphis could pick up again soon. The Grizzlies still need a scoring big man, and they’re now carrying Quentin Richardson’s $9.35M contract, along with the other superfluous pieces on their roster (Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric, both expiring in 2011). In most cases, a team can’t trade a guy for two months after they acquire him in a deal, but since Memphis is under the cap, they’re exempt from this rule in Richardson’s case.

Brian Skinner declined his $1.3M player option. It’s a gamble for the 33-year-old Skinner, until you realize that the minimum salary for a player with ten years of service or greater is $1,306,455. It’s unlikely that Skinner opted out without some confidence that there’s a deal out there for him somewhere — and there probably is, accompanied by more minutes than he’d get in the crowded Clippers’ frontcourt.

Rounding out the transactions of the day, the Clippers will have to endure Ricky Davis for another season. He picked up his $2.48M player option. The Clips declined their team option on Alex Acker. And Fred Jones is now officially off-contract. Jones put up a 10.41 PER last season, which isn’t all that horrendous for a versatile backup making league minimum. The Clippers have a $2M bi-annual exception, but it’s unlikely they’ll use it to fill out the back end of their roster — which would include Jones — until after Summer League, a possible trade, and when the market settles down.

One of the maxims of NBA basketball is that no matter how heated things get on the court, punches never find their intended target.  Players dance around, jaw at one another, but relative peace prevails. Tonight, Zach Randolph flouts that unwritten law, and connects with a left-handed jab to Louis Amundson’s face.

Randolph and Amundson get tangled underneath the Clippers basket as the two big men battle for position.   As Ricky Davis’ 3PA falls through the basket, Randolph shoves the Phoenix reserve to the floor, then stands over Amundson, taunting him.  When Amundson gets up and confronts Zach, Randolph pops him one.

The timing couldn’t be worse.  The Clippers are without Marcus Camby and Brian Skinner — their only two passable interior defenders.  Chris Kaman is still a couple weeks away, and the Clips waived Cheikh Samb yesterday after acquiring another marginal Piston, Alex Acker.  Zach and DeAndre Jordan qualify as the only legitimate bigs available to Mike Dunleavy to contend with Shaquille O’Neal and Amare Stoudemire.

It’s doubtful Zach Randolph considers this when he acquaints Amundson’s jaw with his fist.  At no point during his career has Randolph given off the impression he considers much of anything outside that small space around the low right block.  Within the confines of the post area — stretching out toward the perimeter — and the ball in his hands, Randolph is a stinking genius.  Get him outside his little fiefdom, and he’s Zach Randolph –  an oblivious lug who can’t be bothered defensively, can’t create a shot for any teammate, and detracts from any semblance of his team’s class or collective character.  Fortunately, this Clippers team at this moment in the organization’s history has little class or character to lose.  Randolph will always be able to carry the scoring load on a bad team, but that’s the extent of his function in the NBA.

It wasn’t Zach Randolph’s fist that cost the Clippers the game – the jab at Amundson might have sealed it – but actually his first quarter defense.   The five most terrifying words to a Clipper fan: “O’Neal will work against Randolph.”  Ten seconds into the game, Randolph all but surrenders to an Amare Stoudemire back screen along the baseline, which gives O’Neal an easy two.  [1st, 11:50] On the very next PHX possession, he never leaves his feet to help on the Stoudemire drive; he merely sloughs off O’Neal at 15 feet, goes to a spot beneath the basket, and watches Stoudemire throw it down.  It’s laughable.  [1st, 11:28].  Then once O’Neal checks out for his first breather, there’s the vaunted Nash/Amundson S/R at [1st, 2:44].  The Clippers correctly trap Nash on the perimeter.  But Randolph stumbles behind Nash, who has already turned the corner and taken off for the hoop.  By clumsily lurching between Nash and Fred Jones, Randolph is actually an impediment to his teammate, who is trying to recover on the play.  Nash drives unbothered toward the rack, with Amundson on the drag to Nash’s right.  Easy pass to Amundson, easy uncontested two.

There’s little else to say about a game in which the Clippers trail by 52 with two minutes remaining.  We see the first of Alex Acker as a Clipper, and the Wisconsin Badger Pepperdine Wave shows off his range with a trio of long-range bombs.  Steve Novak has one of his poorer shooting nights of the season.   Eric Gordon picks up where he left off Friday night on the same hardwood.

The two teams will go at it again tomorrow night, almost certainly without Zach Randolph.  Unless Camby has recovered from his ear infection or Brian Skinner can suit up, the Clippers’ front line will once again be reduced to DeAndre Jordan.