You are flat out wrong... sorry. You are explaining some dynamic situation where there were millions of unknowns... we knew what the cap was, we knew who we wanted to keep, we knew we needed a backup center, we knew exactly how much the MLE was and that using the full amount would mean we were over the tax by a very small amount. We knew that would start the repeater tax clock.
The only unknown I can think of is that maybe they were not sure they would need to re-sign Conley this offseason because he is playing well. Even still good responsible cap managers would have given themselves some ability or wiggle room... there were 3 opportunities to do so. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.
Take the Favs situation... say they felt he was the only backup center they could ever want or need... but that they also needed to slip below the tax this year to avoid a potential $50M penalty or losing a key cog this offseason... He wants 3 years and $29M as the full MLE... could you just negotiate that number down $1m the first year and tack a fourth year on the deal that is 40% guaranteed and get it done... even if you gave him 4/36 and made the whole thing guaranteed you are giving up $6M to potentially save 10s of millions later or to prevent a future fire sale. If he was deeply offended at the negotiation and walks then guess what? You find another alternative! You just drafted a kid you apparently really love so stringing yourself out long term is likely not ideal.
Call it what you want but if these guys are ****ing financial ninjas like you are purporting then they should be able to manage a couple contract negotiations without setting ourselves up for a catastrophic financial event. If Ryan is so willing to spend why did we give up a real asset to dump Rayjon Tucker's $400k guarantee? If you end up in the tax by a small amount and make moves to shed dollars with assets and add dollars later on meaningless depth... well that doesn't strike me as nailing it. There is some inconsistencies here that even a casual dumb ****ing fan like me can see.
If you think we have managed the cap well then I would advise you to look back at Gordon's final season... we reserved cap space to extend Hill but then we couldn't come to terms and did nothing meaningful with that space. A completely wasted asset. If we are so on top of it don't we negotiate earlier with Hill and use the space if we think we are too far apart?
Doesn't mean DL sux or that our front office is dumz AF... it means whoever our cap guru is should be let go or given a strong talking to... if DL ignored that person then its on him. Not a fireable offense but I've seen CEOs fire smart CFOs over less.