I'm in the "they haven't even seen our true form yet" camp!
Healthy Domas, healthy Fox and year two Keegan is gonna be NASTY... Not to mention another offseason learning from the CoTY.
I reckon the truth lies between my reawakened Homerism and your steady SLABian pessimism... but probably a moot point anyways. One doesn't free up this much cap just to run it back.
Yes and no.
Can only imagine the pressure on Monte. The league is built on the principle of "what have you done for me lately". There is a slew of COTYs who get fired within a couple of seasons of winning the awards and GMs who turn from darlings to nemesis. We had our Cinderella story. Now we need to take the next step. If we don't, or worse, fare worse than last year, the media and fans might turn pretty soon. We will also have a target on our back next year.
The risk of course is that Monte is forced to overpay for some player(s) to use the cap space. After trading the FRP, there is lots of pressure and expectation to not run it back. He also knows that this is the last chance to get a FA for the current version of the Kings. If he is unable to get the guy he has targeted, does he overpay other players in order to use the cap, and hope for trades later? Using the cap would be a smart move, overpaying, obviously not.
Easy for us armchair GMs to list our preferences, and the worth we assign to players. Let's see what we can land, particularly if the plan is to use part of the space to up Domas' salary, and bring back Lyles. We will need to get at least one more center (even if Neemias is ready to contribute), one starting PF/SF, and hopefully bring back Lyles. Given the requirements, the available space doesn't seem much (once we add up Domas' raise, Lyles' cap hold, and Neemias' QO, I guess we will have something like 20M to get a backup center, and a starting quality SF/PF). Sounds less in fact.