The NBA Mole

Have you ever seen that ABC reality show, The Mole? The basic premise of the show is that a group of strangers are brought together to complete a set of missions in order to win big money. The catch? One of the participants is "the mole" -- someone who's job is to secretly sabotage the group so they do not complete the mission.

The mole must be covert in order to avoid detection while they slowly unravel the group's morale. Sometimes the mole outwardly throws competitions. Other times if enough teammates are doing poorly, the mole can just sit back and watch the team lose without having to get involved. Every so often, in order to throw people off the scent, the mole has to put forth a strong effort, just to make it look like he cares about the team's well being before he goes right back to the sabotage.

After watching the first 5 games of the NBA Finals, I think I've figured out who the mole is on the Lakers. His name? Kobe Bryant. There can be no other explanation. How can a team that decimated their more powerful Western Conference counterparts be down 3-2 to a squad that was taken to the limit by the Atlanta Hawks?

The untrained eye may spot someone like Lamar Odom and think he's the mole. After all, he puts his head down and sloppily charges over people, misses wide open looks at the rim and always misses at least one of his free throws with every trip to the line. But you can see in Lamar's eyes that he could never pull off something as complex as being an NBA Benjamin Arnold. His nervous demeanor would never be able to conceal his treachery.

So could it be newcomer Pau Gasol? He did come late to the Laker party, after a mid-season trade from Memphis, so he might not care as much as everyone else about winning. I did suspect Pau for much of the Finals, given his soft rebounding, porous defense and scraggly beard, but reviewing some of the previous games this season proves that his lack of heart is merely an affliction of his Euro-league training.

Could it be members of the bench mob? Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar, or Ronny Turiaf? Nah, none of those guys plays enough to really be able to determine an entire game. Vlad Radmanovic? Too obvious. Derek Fisher? Come on.

No, the mole has to be Kobe. Why? Well let's examine the reasons:

• After two lopsidedly refereed games in Boston, Kobe knew that all he had to do was drive to the rim every single play in order to go to the line. It worked for Dwayne Wade when the Miami Heat came back from an 0-2 deficit to win the title in 2005. But what does Kobe do? He just stands 18-20 feet away from the basket and shoots fade away jumpshots. Kobe's not throwing his body into the paint like Boston counterpart, Paul Pierce, even though the refs are rewarding offensive aggressiveness.


• On the sidelines, rather than listen to instruction from his coaches, Kobe berates and demeans all of his teammates and then sits away from the huddle during timeouts. Red Sox pitcher, Curt Schilling was close enough to the bench to hear Kobe's remarks, which he then blogged about for the world to see. As we said, the mole tries to unravel the group's morale. Check.


• During defensive sequences, Kobe freelances much of the time, drifting off his man and just wandering around the court trying to make steals. Many times, this leads to defensive breakdowns since the other players are rotating late while trying to pick up the slack.


• Kobe Bryant is the only one cold-blooded and calculated enough to pull this off. Even during his sexual assault trial, Kobe was so detached from reality that he complained about the quality of the plane the Lakers chartered to bring him to and from his Denver trial.

I'm onto you, Kobe Bryant. I'm not exactly sure why you're sabotaging your own team -- did someone promise you a date with Vanessa Hudgens, Vanessa Williams, and Vanessa from the Cosby Show to complete your "I Heart Vanessa" collection, but only if you throw the Finals? Who knows?

All I know is you're the mole. I dare you to prove otherwise this week, Mr. Bryant. You have two games left.