You would think the year we went into an off-season $99m over the cap and still was able to sign the league’s highest paid free agent that off-season to a $135m deal, all this talk would cease.
That was the most extreme example possible to illustrate what the salary cap really is…nothing but an accounting project to fit what you want to fit into it, responsibly.
We spend one off-season doing that, scaling things back intentionally slightly, to be responsible while loading up for the next true run, and people use that as ammo for “See, we are now limited; this system sucks.”