Hart spent only half a season with the lottery-bound Clippers, which was plenty.

"It just didn't work out," he said.

Hart's agent negotiated a buyout with L.A. management last week and, on Tuesday, his client signed with the contending Denver Nuggets.

"I happy to be here," Hart said before the Jazz-Nuggets game at EnergySolutions Arena. "You miss being around a winning attitude. When you win, there are a lot of smiles in the locker room. When you lose, it's not that way. So it worked out."

Despite limited playing time behind Deron Williams , Hart insists he enjoyed his one season in Utah, playing for Jerry Sloan .

"It was cool," he said. "I had a great time -- a good team, a great coach. I loved it. ? When I coach, I'm going to run my program like [Sloan] does."

Hart's biggest memory of his time in Utah?

He recalled a morning when, during shootaround, a delivery truck rammed into his new car, which was parked in the arena's west lot.

"A brand new car," Hart said. "They paid for it, the people who did it. But I won't ever forget that."

?

Point by point

The Jazz-Nuggets game featured two of the top point guards in the NBA in Williams and Chauncey Billups , whose arrival via an early-season trade with Detroit has benefitted the Nuggets.

"He keeps them under control and, when they need something, he seems to be the guy who steps to the front and gets it done," Sloan said. "I mean, if you want to run a pick-and-roll or an isolation -- whatever they want to run -- he gives them direction. I'm sure he understands time and possession as well as anybody who's playing point guard."

Asked about the head-to-head match-up between Williams and Billups, Sloan was less enthusiastic.

"I'm not a fan that way," he said. "I think it's five-on-five. ? I'm not into the one-on-one stuff too much, to be honest. I think people pay to see five-on-five. I know people talk about those [individual] battles and I'm sure they're fun from the fans' standpoint. But I like to see teams play."

luhm@sltrib.com