Having the financial flexibility is one thing, how you spend the money is another. You don't beat Harden, Giannis,Lebron by starpowers. We beat them by the numbers. Having a good number of players on your team who can contribute in big ways is the key. But instead of going for a number of useful players who can contribute to our team on reasonable contract(say, Sabonis' contract with the Pacers for example), we exhausted a huge chunk of our assets and cap "flexibility" on overpaying for just one or two players who simply cannot produce the same value in return. That is called a waste of assets/resources and poor management. It is the exact opposite of how we hope to build our team.
Now with the lack of depth in our team, all you can hope for is to compete with the likes of Lebron, AD, Kawhi, Giannis, Harden in starpowers with Conley, DM and Rudy. That is not even a gamble. That is called suicide.
Management work is to make the best use of the resources available to build the best team possible that has the best chance in achieving the best result. Not to sit and pray for some kind of impossible miracle because of your lack of judgement and effort.