Los Angeles Lakers improved for 2019-20, but are they a title contender?

Storyline 1: Which LeBron James will the Lakers get this year?

LeBron James is the most consistent star player in the game, perhaps in NBA history. For eight straight seasons he not only made the postseason but led his team to the NBA Finals. Over those eight seasons he averaged each year between 25.3 and 27.5 points per game, with between 7.0 and 9.1 assists and 6.0 and 8.5 rebounds.

Year after year he churned out elite seasons and brought in four MVP awards and three titles.

Last season was a jarring outlier from that consistency. He played in just 55 games, a career low, sustaining the first major injury of his career. While the counting stats were there he had a more muted impact on winning, especially after his return from injury.

Defensively he was a sieve, motivationally he was checked out and the Los Angeles Lakers did not come particularly close to the postseason berth many viewed as a fait accompli before the season.

Lakers fans are unsure which James to expect this season. It’s easy to assume a healthy James with a better supporting cast means he will be locked in to start the season. This is a player who has gone 27-5 in playoff series over the past nine years, many of those largely on his back during the end of his second stint in Cleveland. If that LeBron James is back, this team is going to roll.

For all of his impressive achievements, however, in the end James is getting old. This is a player who has defied the normal aging curve and kept his production sky-high despite the amount of minutes he has played, but in the end Father Time is undefeated. He is going to soon be the career leader in total minutes played and turns 35 in December.

Everyone from his draft class is dropping out of the league.

Lakers fans are expecting peak LeBron James, the one who doesn’t coast defensively and is focused on winning a title. Does an older LeBron focus more on pacing himself and being a father, with basketball his job but no longer he sole focus? Will his body keep up? These questions will largely dictate the Lakers’ fate in both the regular season and the playoffs.