Replacing Magic Johnson with a competent, respected basketball mind would have been a top priority for 29 NBA teams. For the Los Angeles Lakers? It's just another chance to promote one of their own. They have not set up any interviews with top executives around the league for the vacant president of basketball operations. With each passing day, it grows likelier and likelier that Rob Pelinka, former agent to Kobe Bryant, will control all basketball operations for the team moving forward just as he has taken command of the search for a coach to replace Luke Walton. The man who seems to be gaining steam as his No. 2 is former Laker Kurt Rambis.

Bill Oram of The Athletic went on AM 570 LA Sports and said that "My understanding is Rob Pelinka is running the show. Who else is included in that is a little unclear to me. I would expect Kurt Rambis to play a role in that." Rambis is, for now, in an advisory role, but the seeds for more have been growing for quite some time.

Oram previously noted that Rambis, who did not travel with the team for most of the season, went with them on a February road and that the coaching staff certainly noticed. His ties to the highest levels of decision-making in the organization are well established. He is married to Linda Rambis, arguably Jeanie Buss' top advisor, and spent almost his entire coaching career under Phil Jackson, Buss' former fiance and a five-time champion with the Lakers. He is exactly the sort of person that the Lakers would empower despite every shred of evidence indicating that they shouldn't.

Rambis has a career record of 65-164 as a head coach. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo once wrote that Rambis was "beyond unpopular" with the players on the New York Knicks, where he worked under Jackson. Sources described his approach to Wojnarowski fairly bluntly: "When players want coaching and teaching, they get yelling." Marc Berman reported for The New York Post in 2016 that Rambis had a bad relationship with both Kevin Love and Owner Glen Taylor when he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and more distressingly, has so few relationships around the league that when he was hired as their head coach, he received only one call from a potential assistant coach looking for work.

Does this sound like someone who should have any sort of impact over the NBA's most important franchise? Of course not. The Lakers need people in their front office right now that can connect with players after the locker room was destroyed by Anthony Davis rumors. That isn't Rambis. They need someone with an extensive network who can help repair their reputation around the league. That isn't Rambis. And of course, they need someone who actually knows what he is doing. It seems pretty clear at this point that isn't Rambis.

But Rambis played for the Lakers. He coached for the Lakers. In a sense, he's even married to a Laker. He bleeds purple and gold. That's the only trait that matters in an organization that places more emphasis on the metaphorical color of one's blood than the actual quality of his brain.