Team is better than you say and as dumb as it sounds building around a once in 5 years floor raiser is tough. So we had a really bad roster when we drafted Luka, but we had to trade next years first to get him. So already the lottery pick from when we still suck in his rookie year is gone. Then late rookie year we trade for 24 year old Porzingis in a trade that most media outlets and reddit considered a strong Mavs win. That cost 2 more 1sts and by Luka year 3 we're a 50ish win playoff team. At this point you can't just starve the roster for cap room with no picks coming and a talent projecting as the next LeBron. Same issue the first stint Lebron Cavs had. Certainly mistakes were made but at some point you only have one chance to go in and they didn't have a good one. At that point you really can't get back to cap space and good draft picks without 'throwing away' a season from a top 5 player.