AROUND THE LEAGUE

The Hornets made a big move to improve their roster this summer by landing Peja Stojakovic, then watched him struggle through nights such as four-for-15, three-for-10 and five-for-16 in some of his first few games with them.

The Hornets didn’t panic. They knew Stojakovic hadn’t gone from one of the world’s best shooters to a guy who forgot how to score.

And they were right, as proven by Stojakovic’s 42-point outburst Tuesday against Charlotte.

“It doesn’t happen just because we made the deal and got him open,” Hornets Coach Byron Scott said. “It’s not going to happen right away. Give the man a chance. Understand that it is going to take him time to get his feet wet, going to take him time to learn the system.

“Even though he is a veteran, this is a learning process. I’m not worried about Peja. If this was January and he was shooting 30 percent, then I would worry. But I’m not worried about Peja.”

Stojakovic was 15 for 22 in that victory against the Bobcats, and he scored the Hornets’ first 20 points of the game. Besides his five three-pointers, he also had eight rebounds and made a couple of key defensive plays down the stretch.

“Even on nights where he doesn’t have 42, he’s still a huge presence for us,” said point guard Chris Paul. “He makes so many different things happen, even when he’s not scoring. Teams always have to respect him.”

Stojakovic followed that with another tough shooting game, going five for 13 in Detroit. But the Hornets pulled out a victory, and Stojakovic expects many more of them as he and the team’s other new pieces continue to grasp their roles.

“Nobody’s yet comfortable. We’re still learning each other on the court, learning the system,” Stojakovic said. “We’re still not playing to our full potential. We can play better basketball. As long as we keep building on that and improving our effort, I think it’s going to help.”

*

The Nets are one of four NBA teams set to debut alternate road uniforms within the next week.

Charlotte, Utah and Washington also will have new looks -- with the Wizards becoming the first team in 60 years to have alternate colors for the top and bottom of their uniforms.

Washington’s new top is gold with “WIZARDS” across the front and features stars along the sides. With the shorts being predominantly black, the Wizards become the first team since the 1946 Chicago Stags with alternate color top and bottoms.

The Nets’ alternate uniform is similar to their home and road ones but is red. The Jazz uniform is blue with navy and white along the sides of the top and a vertical “UTAH” on the shorts. Charlotte goes with a slate blue jersey with black and orange along the sides.

*

Now that advance scouts don’t have a coveted courtside seat for games, Pistons Coach Flip Saunders isn’t sure teams are relying on them as much.

And Warriors Coach Don Nelson has never found advance scouting to be a huge advantage.

“Some people are peeling it back,” Saunders said. “Advance scouts aren’t at the scorer’s tables and can’t get play calls. Advance scouting does so much. Good teams worry about themselves.”

In this era of television coverage for almost every game, coaches have plenty of opportunities to see their opponents play and study their tendencies.

“In one aspect what has changed is every game is on DirecTV,” Saunders said. “Everyone sees almost every game that’s been played.”

Nelson, in his second stint as Golden State’s coach and the man who last took this team to the playoffs in 1994, is old school when it comes to all this new-age stuff.

When Nelson most utilizes information from his advance scouts is when the Warriors play on back-to-back nights and he hasn’t had the access to how an opponent did in its previous game or he just doesn’t have time to fully evaluate tape.

“I don’t emphasize it as much as everybody else,” Nelson said. “Twenty years ago, nobody had an assistant coach or had one maybe. Now we’ve all got more than we can use.”

But other teams still find value in a good advance scout. Portland’s Pat Zipfel, for example, said he is at 140 games during the season -- 80 times scouting an upcoming opponent and the other 60 sitting behind the bench helping Coach Nate McMillan and his staff.