VIDEO: Doc and Austin Rivers make NBA history

Regardless of what you think of the logic of the Los Angeles Clippers' most recent acquisition, you have to admit it was a nice moment Friday night when Austin Rivers entered the game against the Cleveland Cavaliers and became the first son to be coached by his father in an NBA game.

Austin said before Friday's game that he had to think about whether he wanted to play for his father, after Doc called him and asked if it was something he might be interested in doing.

The first thing I did was call my mom. She's going to have to deal with this. She was a wreck the first night. She was calling me, "What if this happens and what if that happens." I was like, "Mom, it's not on anybody but me and him." And at the end of the day my job is to play and compete and that's it. It's not like in the last second of a game I'm going to have the ball in my hands. I know my role here. I know Chris (Paul) and Blake (Griffin) are the leaders.

ESPN's Arash Markazi has more on a reunion that father and son never thought would happen:

It was never Austin's dream to play for his dad and it was never Doc's dream to coach his son. In fact, both of them have been on the record in the past saying they would like to stay in their separate lanes. But when Rivers became available at the same time the Clippers were looking for a defensive-minded guard to help spark the second unit, Doc and particularly those around him couldn't ignore the opportunity regardless of the unique circumstances.

Doc said: 

The group around me, our coaches, (general manager) Dave Wohl and (vice president of basketball operations) Kevin Eastman said he fits our team. For me I was like, "I don't know" but at the end of the day my job is to do what I think is best for the team, not what's best for me or what's comfortable for me. We felt like this was. That probably swayed me more than the father part swayed me, I can tell you that. I was probably on the other way that way but as far as an executive I had to think of it in those terms and it made sense for us.

Austin added that his relationship with his father will be like it would be with any other coach, and dismissed any notion that he might get preferential treatment:

My dad is too focused on his thing for that to even be an issue, that's almost a disrespectful thing to my dad. My dad would never, ever play me over somebody because I'm his son. If I'm not playing well, I'm sitting on the bench. He wants to win. My dad's the type of guy when I was five years old, we played checkers and he would not let me win. That's just how he is. He's not doing any favors for me.

I have to earn everything here, and the guys know that. If we didn't have high-character guys here I don't think he would have made the move, but they're all high-character guys and they know I will play because I should play and if I shouldn't, I won't. I'm just here to have a good attitude and help the team.