At Los Angeles Lakers Media Day, Anthony Davis stated his goal for the 2022-23 season: play 82 games.

The sentiment is genuinely admirable and equally unnecessary.

Davis missed three preseason games with lower back tightness. The team downplayed the issue. He has played awesome basketball through the first four real games, albeit in four losses.

In the second game, vs. the Los Angeles Clippers, Davis took a hard fall and went to the locker room more than once in back pain and was obviously hobbled. In his squad's 11-point loss to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday, Davis took a hit in the back and limped his way to a 22/14/5/3/2 while repeatedly grimacing in pain and battling Nikola Jokic. Again: admirable and unnecessary.

“He’s fine. He’s fine,” Darvin Ham said afterward. “He wouldn’t have been able to finish the game — getting that shot in the back, we were all a little nervous at that point in time, but he was able to get through the game and give us a lot of good production. But he’s fine.”

Now, AD is out for Friday's matchup against Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

If I can use Royal We — what are We doing?!

Anthony Davis, 29, is two years away from free agency. LeBron James will probably not be his running mate by then, though the NBA's most powerful agent will be. Understandably, Davis has been working to dispel the narrative that he's injury-prone for a minute.

He tried to push through a severe groin injury in Game 6 of the 2021 playoffs after Charles Barkley called him “Street Clothes” (he gutted out a few possessions). Earlier that season, the since-fired training staff allowed him to play through documented Achilles issues, only for him to predictably submit to season-wrecking lower-leg injuries.

AD bulked up in the summer of 2021. But two months into the 2021-22 season, he had been listed on the injury report for myriad reasons. Jaden McDaniels unluckily fell into his leg, causing him to miss a month. That February, he came down awkwardly on his ankle and missed five more weeks. His exit interview press conference was mostly devoted to his “fluky” injuries.

During this past summer, Rob Pelinka said AD was amidst one of the “quietly biggest offseasons of his career” (whatever that means). Once again, the state of Davis' body was a source of optimism as training camp began.

Yet, within days, Davis went out of his way to blame last season's perimeter shooting woes (which have been ongoing since the bubble) on a previously undisclosed wrist injury (he's 2-of-11 from 3-point range this season). Ham wanted the final two preseason games to be legit dress rehearsals, yet AD didn't make the trip to Sacramento for the finale. Clearly, his back injury was not nothing.

Fans want stars to play through pain. AD deeply wants to get a win for the Lakers. His dedication is unquestioned. In terms of personal production, he's crushing it — 24.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.8 steals, 2.2 blocks per game — though his unusually dejected postgame demeanor has resembled a dude working through too much, too early.

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In the modern NBA, players have more agency than ever when it comes to their availability. There are politics, power brokers, brands, reputations, and other factors at play. In the regular season, those things often take precedence over X's and O's and pick-and-rolls (if none of that mattered, Russell Westbrook would be riding the pine).

AD doesn't want to bail on his goal so early. That's an alley-oop for First Take. But, the Lakers — who, sources say, are not going to win the championship — are simply being irresponsible with arguably their most important player.

Since being hired, Ham has repeatedly emphasized the top two items on his agenda: Make AD the centerpiece on both ends, and carefully manage his and LeBron's health, particularly early in the season.

“I don’t need LeBron or AD playing playoff minutes in October, November, or December,” Ham said at Media Day.

Anthony Davis is averaging 35 minutes over the first four games — more than his career rate (34.4). In game 4 of 82, AD was checking the two-time MVP on national TV while struggling through glaring back pain— an ailment that has seemingly worsened since the preseason.

What are We doing?!