Bumming around town with Bill Bumerton

Bumerton is a retired Navy fighter pilot who had been missing in action for several years while he traversed the globe looking for greener grass. He discovered the grass is only greener here (it’s blue in Kentucky), so he returned to again take charge of his 1954 green Hudson Hornet that had been in storage, refilled his pipe, and is continuing his smokin’ ways. Here is what he recently told us at the Sports Paper.

I take issue with what Clay Moyle just wrote for this sorry rag of yours, Big Dawg, about cramping and LeBron James. He’s making excuse for the best basketball player in the world, and maybe one of the best athletes of all time. There is no excuse for that.  I’ve been watching this LeBron character for some time now and I can tell you he’s a full-blown, healthy man with a child’s mentality. He can be awesome to watch and at times disappointing to watch. When he’s in his child-like mentality he can be lazy on defense, cherry-picking on offense and standoffish when he should bear down and take over a game. The other night he drove into the lane and clearly could have put up a shot and likely be hammered for his efforts, leading to two foul shots that could have tied the game. Instead he took the easy way out and passed the ball out to the corner for a three that missed and cost them the game. Any of the great players of the past – Magic, Bird, MJ – would have taken the hammering and tied the game at the foul line. But I’m seen LeBron too many times fall back when he should charge forward and take over a game as he can and should. Until that happens, I’m going to continue to call him a fantastic athlete with a man’s man body who when the going gets tough decides he wants none of that.  Just once I’d like to see him fully live up to his image – one of the best to ever play the game.