“We still like this team a lot,” Buss said Thursday in an interview with ESPNLA 710 radio in Los Angeles. “How can you not believe in this team? This team is built to win. It’s a very, very solid team. We haven’t seen them all together and play together for games. In my mind, we would not consider a temporary fix or blow it up. Why blow up something we have a future with?

“It’s very difficult to talk this way because we’re five games under or six games under .500, and we’ve dug ourselves a hole. But at the same time, I feel that if we put it together, we can string seven or eight games in a row and dig ourselves out of this hole. If we play with the energy we’ve seen in the last two games, then I think you go into the playoffs with momentum.”

Buss was referring, of course, to the Lakers’ injury woes this season. Steve Nash missed seven weeks with a broken bone in his leg. Dwight Howard has struggled in his recovery from back surgery and is now out indefinitely with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Pau Gasol has missed time with assorted leg injuries and is now out with a concussion. Backup point guard Steve Blake has missed all but the first five games with an abdominal injury.

Still, bad luck hasn’t been the whole story of the Lakers’ season. The team fired coach Mike Brown five games into the season and chose Mike D’Antoni to replace him when former coach and 11-time NBA champion Phil Jackson was available and interested in the job.

General manager Mitch Kupchak has previously said the Lakers chose D’Antoni because they felt his system would apply to this roster better than Jackson’s Triangle offense. Buss concurred and said he, Kupchak and his father, owner Dr. Jerry Buss, still feel that way.

“We thought Steve Nash was our future point guard for the next three years and we needed a coach we felt would fit with him,” Buss said. “That was one of the main issues where we thought that D’Antoni was better than Phil. Well, not better, nobody’s better than Phil, but we felt that he fit the team the way we wanted to work it.

“I like D’Antoni a lot. I still believe in him 100 percent. I have no questions about him. We just have to have this team work together and play together. We just don’t have enough information to analyze anything. It’s just not enough data to put your finger on a problem.”

Injuries and everything else aside, what if this team and its $99.2 million payroll don’t make the playoffs?

“We stuck our neck out with this payroll because Kobe (Bryant) is in the twilight of his career and we want to win championships,” Buss said. “Now, am I upset that we might not make the playoffs? Of course. I’d be upset if I had a $10 payroll or a $200 million payroll. I want to make the playoffs and I want to win championships. But to panic? No, we’re not going to panic.”

The Lakers could face a difficult situation in convincing Howard to re-sign with them when he becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1. The Lakers can offer more years and more money than any other team because of the way the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is structured, but would Howard want to stick around after a season that’s gone so poorly?

“If we make the playoffs, that means we’re playing well and I think we’ll go deep in the playoffs and it’s a no-brainer that he stays,” Buss said. “I think if it continues to fall apart because of injuries, I’m hoping we can convince him, ‘Look, everybody was injured, you weren’t 100 percent for the whole year, let’s give it another shot next year.’

“It points to 95 percent that we’ll be able to keep him. I can’t control what he does, but I can sure make a great argument.”

As for Gasol, who is averaging a career-low 12.6 points a game and has struggled each of the past two seasons to find his place in the Lakers’ offense, Buss said he expects the 7-foot Spaniard not only to revert to his previous form, but to play more in the low post, as both Gasol and Bryant have advocated.

“I love Pau Gasol,” Buss said. “The thing is, if you shoot the basketball from 6 feet, your percentages are going to be in the high 50s. If you shoot from 18 feet, you’re lucky to get 40 percent. To base his year off of his shooting percentages is just not the right way to analyze how he’s playing.

“I believe if we can get him down low, he can coexist with Dwight Howard if they play enough games to where they can play off each other. I believe eventually he will move down there and D’Antoni will move him down there and his percentage will go back right to where it was.”

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Their continuing correspondence is frank, and Van Gundy has been open about his assessment of the center. Speaking in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Van Gundy was equally blunt, saying Howard’s April back surgery is a definite factor in the center’s performance curve with his new team.

Not so many months ago, there was a moment, or maybe even a few minutes, where Kobe Bryant seemed to lose faith, writes Ramona Shelburne. Story

“I don’t think he looks quite as explosive or as quick as he has in the past,” Van Gundy told the newspaper. “Now, he’s still above almost everyone in the league at that size athletically, but he has not totally looked like himself to me.”

The Lakers acquired Howard in a trade with Orlando in August, three months after the Magic fired Van Gundy not long after reports surfaced that Howard had orchestrated the coach’s ouster.

Howard and Van Gundy repaired their relationship, however, and keep in touch as Van Gundy works for NBC Sports as a college basketball analyst.

The Lakers improved to 15-15 with a win Friday, their sixth in seventh games, with Kobe Bryant again leading the offense with 27 points.

Howard, though, had 21 points and 14 rebounds and is averaging 17.6 points and 11.8 boards.

“It’s a big adjustment for him going from being the guy to not only being the No. 2 guy but really a No. 2 guy that really doesn’t get the ball very much at all,” Van Gundy said. “It’s a different deal and an adjustment he has to make. Those kind of things take time.”

Howard was fined $35,000 last week by the NBA for a flagrant foul 2 against Denver’s Kenneth Faried and has vowed to “do a better job of keeping my composure and not getting frustrated and also remember that I’m playing for my teammates at all times and stay on the right path.” Howard was ejected when he jammed his hand in Faried’s face as the Denver forward drove the lane during the Lakers’ loss Wednesday.

“I think Dwight is going to be more than willing to make the adjustment,” Van Gundy told the Times of his playing more of a supporting role. “But it’s still an adjustment and it takes time mentally too because your ego — and ego is not a bad thing, it’s a good thing, you need it to be great in this league — tells you that you’re supposed to be the man and having to adjust to playing off somebody else is not an easy thing.”

Howard has offered up to Van Gundy his own reasons for the Lakers’ struggles this season.

“The only thing he’s really gotten into was, he wants their defense to be better,” Van Gundy said.

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