Last week, Anthony Davis was a big topic of conversation. Namely, how the Lakers star, despite some perfectly good early season production, needed to play better for the Lakers to get where they want to go. Well, the same is true of LeBron James. It starts on the defensive side of things, where James admitted following Friday's loss to the Clippers that he wasn't good enough, particularly in some of the moments where he was playing center. For those lineups to work—and they need to work—James has to be far more precise, and do less freelancing.

But broadly, his performance Friday was indicative of the season as a whole. James hasn't been bad, but for a variety of reasons hasn't played at the MVP level of a year ago, before he was injured. That's the James the Lakers need. Maybe even a little better. And given the amount of work he now has to do defensively (along with Davis) because of the roster turnover, it's fair to ask whether he's truly capable.

That the Lakers may need much more from James indicates some glitches in the offseason vision for the squad. Remember, the idea behind adding Russell Westbrook was to make LeBron's life easier, not harder. Hasn't worked out, to this point.

Finally, Frank Vogel has said he'll only play one of DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard on any given night. For now, it looks like that will be Howard. So is that progress? And should that center be starting, or coming off the bench?

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