NEW ORLEANS—Hornets small forward Peja Stojakovic entertained his teammates Tuesday with his heartwarming tale of growing up in war-torn Croatia and waking up one Christmas morning to find a brand new regulation human head under the tree. "Of course my parents could not afford it, but I didn't know that, and I could not contain myself as I unwrapped the bow and immediately started scuffing up the face with sandpaper so I could get a better grip," said Stojakovic, recalling the pride he felt when he showed his father that he could grip the head with one hand. "I can still remember the sound that the head would make when it went through the coiled razor-wire net. My mother, she used to get angry because I was bouncing the head in the house all the time, but she always encouraged me to work on my head-handling skills." Stojakovic said that he eventually lost the old head—which by then had become discolored and lost most of its skin—when it landed in the yard of a neighbor who refused to give it back.