Dwight Howard stays mum on future. Which is what he should do.

Since the day he set foot in Los Angeles there has been only one thing Dwight Howard could do to win over fans and repair his reputation — play well and win a lot of games for the Lakers.

On the season, both Howard and the Lakers have not played up to expectations. Anywhere near them. He is out again Tuesday night with his nagging shoulder injury.

Now with the Lakers having won five of six, he would be foolish to play the “what if?” or “what’s next?” games as the Lakers head into Brooklyn Tuesday night. You know, the city and team he tried to get traded to.

Stephen A. Smith of ESPN tried to find out about Howard’s next steps in a very Stephen A. Smith interview (which you can see below, thanks to the Kamentzky Brothers for finding that). Howard’s response was always a variant of “I’m focused on winning and getting into the playoffs, not on the future.”

“I understand, you know, what the Lakers want, and I also understand that right now, there’s no need for all the circus, and all the stuff that happened last year to start back up. I don’t want it, my team doesn’t need it, I don’t need it, and frankly, our fans don’t need it neither.”

Is that going to stop all the talk? No. Not even close.

With the trade deadline approaching there are a lot of people trying to sell the rumor that the Lakers might shop Howard and trade him. That rumor dies the second you talk to Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak or to anyone who asked the Lakers about Howard and was basically hung up on. Howard isn’t getting traded.

The Lakers maintain their goal is to re-sign Howard this summer. Howard isn’t talking.

But what else is Howard going to say? If he says he wants to test the free agent waters than there will be months of stories and speculation about him leaving the Lakers and where he might go. If he says he is staying he locks himself into that outcome without seeing how his relationships with Kobe Bryant and Mike D’Antoni play out over the course of a full season.

I bet he stays. I think he re-signs with the Lakers on a max deal this summer and he and Kobe and D’Antoni start to figure it out. I’d bet on a Pau Gasol trade this summer — the Lakers need athletes and shooters for D’Antoni — but it’s not something that will happen now. After a season of injuries and coaching changes and general instability, the Lakers have won five of six and they are not about to start shaking things up again right now.

But that’s not about to slow the speculation train. Not a bit.