After the Lakers lost four of their last five games, including a loss by a pitiful 41 points to the Miami Heat earlier this week, LeBron James now says the team needs more pieces to compete at the level they want.

“With the lineups not matching up, we’re obviously trying to find ways (to make the team work). So it’s a big challenge. We don’t have much room for error. (We’re missing) big, big pieces,” James told reporters after last night’s overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

The ironic thing about James’ comments, however, is that the Lakers literally could have had another person on their bench to at least somewhat alleviate their depth problem. Instead, LeBron pressured the team to sign his son Bronny James with the 55th overall pick in this year’s NBA draft.

Bronny was already sent to the G-League because new head coach JJ Redick and the Lakers organization realized what everyone else was doing: The 20-year-old wasn’t ready to play at the NBA level.

The Lakers now have the fifth-worst bench in the league. Not great for King LeBron, as even Redick is at a loss for words.

The Lakers are in 10th place in the Western Conference

“It’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed, we’re all embarrassed… I’m not sure what was lost in translation. There has to be some ownership on the court,” the former Duke star told reporters earlier this week.

I have no idea what Redick means by “lost in translation,” and apparently LeBron didn’t either. When reporters told him what his head coach had said, James responded, “I’ll do whatever JJ says.”

The ironic thing is that the Lakers organization has been saying this about James’ demands for years and especially this past offseason, and look where they are now. For now, LeBron and Anthony Davis and the team have to do everything they can until Austin Reaves and Jaxson Hayes and others return from their injuries.