Lakers’ Pain Is Real, Too : Pro basketball: Lingering injuries to Divac, Smith add to the team’s emotional burden. No trades are expected soon.

Time might heal the Lakers’ emotional wounds, but their physical injuries are mending slowly, too.

Vlade Divac’s back spasms kept him out of Monday’s practice, and Tony Smith, eligible to come off the injured list, couldn’t scrimmage Tuesday.

Coach Mike Dunleavy said the team is unlikely to make a trade soon, so they will probably have only 10 physically fit players again for their next game, Thursday against the Warriors in Oakland.

“I don’t see us making a move very quickly at all,” Dunleavy said. “We’re going to wait to see what we have and make decisions after that.”

Tuesday was merely another chapter in their lowered-expectations, high-profile existence. The Lakers received 18,000 pieces of mail. The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited their practice at Loyola Marymount.

Jackson arrived after most players had left, but chatted with some of the stragglers while his staff passed out a position paper titled, “Seize This Magic Moment: The Challenge of Magic Johnson,” to reporters.

“Rough, huh?” Jackson asked Byron Scott.

“Homeboy!” Jackson called to Sam Perkins.

The Lakers have been without at least two players from their nine-man rotation in every game this season. Meanwhile, Dunleavy is trying to redesign the team on the fly.

Before Johnson’s retirement, Dunleavy was assured of two mismatches on the floor at any one time. Johnson was invariably taller than his defender and could beat anyone from the low post. Forwards James Worthy and Sam Perkins are both 6 feet 9, giving the Lakers an advantage against the opposing small forward.

They had planned to return to fast-breaking this season, which would have created more mismatches. Running, for the moment, runs second to rehabilitation.

Smith’s sprained right ankle is better, but he still can’t make some cuts.

Dunleavy said Divac “is in terrible shape. His strength is very low. He hasn’t been able to do anything.

“The reason we were going to run was because of our perceived depth. We would have been real deep, perhaps 11 players. We could have kept pressure on teams.”

To make up for the departure of the man who dominated the ballhandling, Dunleavy will once again try the free-form “motion” offense, in which players move spontaneously. Dunleavy coached the system as an assistant in Milwaukee and tried it with the Lakers last season as a rookie. The Lakers didn’t pick it up quickly, and Dunleavy forgot about it when they started 1-4.

The set offense has also been adjusted.

“Basically, on every play there’s been a change,” Dunleavy said. “The way we played at the end of plays is different. We’d just throw the ball in to Earvin.”

Dunleavy said the practices have been good. Laker players said they are settling down.

“There was an enthusiasm that Magic brought to the team,” Worthy said. “There were a few times when he was absent, we were able to conjure it up for a game or two, keep it alive. Now we’ve got to develop that kind of spirit.”

It has been only six days since Johnson retired. The Lakers haven’t exactly gone back to their old high-spirited ways.

“No,” Dunleavy said. “It’s been mostly serious.”

Laker Notes

Laker General Manger Jerry West attended Tuesday night’s game between the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets at Dallas, amid speculation he is interested in Mavericks’ point guard Derek Harper. . . . West has denied the other trade rumor, that he’ll work a three-way deal with Miami and Boston to acquire the Celtics’ Brian Shaw.