There were multiple responses to my post, and was planning to respond individually. Thought it shall be easier and probably more coherent to put my thoughts in a single post.
To begin with, I don't think that our future is bad, nor am I anxious to spread gloom. Quite the contrary. With Reke and DMC, I think our future is quite bright. Nor I am surprised that the team is trying to pick up cash. As I said earlier, it's the Maloofs' money, and their team. They get to decide how to run it. And yes, the money shall be needed to give raise to our own players in future, so they have to consider that, along with revenues, while signing new players.
I also don't think it was advisable to spend lot of cap space now on some knee jerk deal.
The only points I am trying to make are
1. I don't think the huge cap space is as beneficial as some fans think it is.
2. If we had decided to spend some of the cap space, we could have picked some
assets on the cheap.
Let's tackle 1 first. Some people think that we can get a star using cap space, since we don't have to match salaries. I believe that is not possible. We shall need to give some major assets if we want to get a star. No team trades its star, unless he demands it. And often, it comes with a desire for a specific city. So, even if D12 or CP3 want to come here, we are not getting them, without giving up one of Reke/DMC and much more.
I guess all of us shall willingly give up half our roster including DMC for D12, but that's a pipe dream. More realistic are players like David West, Gerald Wallace, etc. In fact, if Reke and DMC both turn out to be studs, we shall need similar players around them, and not stars (I have in mind players like Ibaka, Noah), etc. These are guys who are excellent, shall command good money, but are not franchise guys (though some people think Noah is). You don't need max for them.
Again, teams shall not just give us guys like these. They'll again demand some assets in return. However, they shall settle for a much lower price, if we can get them under the tax (say Donte/Casspi, and sometimes even much much less than that. Spurs gave up Scola to Rockets for next to nothing).
This is what brings me to the second point. We gave up Landry for Thornton and cash. We took on Daniels and Boston paid us to do so. Fine. While I don't know the deals that were on the table (if any), we could have picked some assets like draft picks/prospect, if we had decided to take on some money. OKC got multiple picks out of Suns this way, they got Maynor from Jazz this way, Rockets got Scola from Spurs, etc.
Finally, a new CBA might alter things significantly (like a lower cap, LT threshold), which might improve our position significantly. I very much doubt that it shall be huge and sudden. Lot of owners who have spent money, or given up future assets to try and win now, shall not go along with this approach. You think Orlando shall like if its LT goes up drastically, forcing its owner to either shell out lot of money, or gut the roster, making D12 unhappy? Changes are more likely to be integrated slowly.