NEW ORLEANS -- Austin Rivers smiled as he sat down on the opposing bench of the Smoothie King Center for the first time in his NBA career.
Rivers was drafted by New Orleans with the 10th pick in the 2012 NBA draft and was supposed to be one-half of the franchise's future 1-2 punch with their first overall pick that year, Anthony Davis.
While Davis has developed into an All-Star, Rivers was traded twice two weeks ago, ending up in Los Angeles with the Clippers where his father, Doc Rivers, is the coach.
"I'm not really going to have any emotions," Austin Rivers said before the game. "They're not going to have a tribute video for me."
He was right. In fact, the public-address announcer didn't even mention Austin Rivers' name when he first initially came into the game and he didn't elicit much of a response from the crowd as he finished with 10 points in 14 minutes off the bench. It was his first back-to-back, double-digit scoring performances since December when he was in New Orleans.
It wouldn't be enough, however, to beat New Orleans as the Pelicans beat the Clippers 108-103. The Clippers came back from 14 points down in the fourth quarter to pull to within two in the final minutes but couldn't finish it off as their six-game winning streak was snapped.
While Rivers didn't have the kind of career in New Orleans he would have liked, he doesn't hold any grudges against the organization that refused to pick up the option on his deal before the season and traded him by midseason.
"It didn't work out in the grand scheme of things, but a lot of things came away from this," he said. "They had a group of good guys on this team and I've been fortunate to play for two teams with a good group of guys."
Although Rivers didn't live up to his expectations in New Orleans, Pelicans coach Monty Williams puts that on himself more than Rivers.
"We did everything we could to help Austin progress in his career," Williams said. "The thing that didn't happen, I take full responsibility for that, nobody else. Not the coaches or anybody else. That's on me. What he wasn't able to do, that falls on my lap and that's not something I take lightly. If there were any failures or anything that didn’t happen or progress in his career, that was my fault.”
Williams says he believes playing with Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford and for Doc Rivers may finally allow Austin Rivers, who turned 22 this summer, an opportunity to fulfill his potential.
"You go to a different team and leave everything behind you and it's a clean slate," Williams said. "Obviously Austin is with Chris every day and he's going to learn a lot from him. Jamal is a guy who can help. They have a veteran team so you can't help but get better in that situation and his dad's a championship coach. Right away he's married up leaving me. That's a benefit in itself, I'm happy for him and I heard he's happy there and he feels a lot better about his situation and that's good for him."
Return of the night: After missing the last game because of back spasms, J.J. Redick returned and had 12 points but struggled from beyond the arc, missing all five of his 3-point attempts.
Return of the night (Part II): Paul, who played his first six seasons in New Orleans, returned and had 24 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists. He was also selected to his eighth straight All-Star Game and will be joining Blake Griffin in New York next month.
"It's great. There's nothing like it," Paul said. "Me and Blake talk about it all the time. Obviously it's all competition, but sometimes there's guys in the All-Star Game you don't really have a relationship with and you don't really care to. It's always cool to have a teammate of your own there that you can talk to and enjoy the weekend with."
Players of the night: In addition to Paul's efforts, Griffin had 19 points and 6 assists and DeAndre Jordan had 12 points, 15 rebounds and 3 blocks. Crawford had 15 points off the bench.