We're kind of in this position because we went a couple of years without a 1st round rookie, so we didn't have backfill to let Meyers or Harkless walk. If we had a Bobby Portis or Larry Nance jr or Cameron Payne sitting on our bench ready to play, paying 10m for Mo or Meyers likely would have been more of a trade study, rather than a "must do".
I don't love the Eurostash methodology with this CBA, and with our cap situation going forward. I would probably (obviously it takes two) look at using 2 (likely on 2 bigs like Justin Jackson and Swanigan/Adebayo) and trading the 3rd for a protected pick in a future year. With the longest contract available being a 5yr (4 for most players), you should be hitting on at least one rotation player every year in order to keep the flow going.
In the last 7 years of the draft, we have obviously had a couple of hits in Dame and CJ. But look at the rest of our team and what the "home-grown" talent is.
No draft capital used: Turner, Nurkic, Vonleh, Davis, Aminu, Harkless, Ezeli, Quarterman, Napier
Draft Capital used (still on team): Layman (2019 2nd), Connaughton (indirectly using 2015 1st), Dame (2012 1st), CJ (2013 1st), Meyers (2012 1st), Crabbe (2016 and 2020 2nd)
Draft Capital used (not on team): Afflalo (2014 1st), RoLo (2 2013 2nds), Felton (2014 2nd), Crash (2011 1st, 2013 1st), Nolan Smith (2011 1st), Barton (2012 2nd), Tyshawn Taylor (2012 2nd)
Going forward, we don't have any of our own 2nds until 2021. We have a (better of MIN or LAL) 2nd in 2019, and MIA's pick in 2021.
Especially if we max Nurkic, we'll have roughly 65-70M (0r 60-65% of cap) on our Big 3, which isn't horrible. But we can't get 2 stars and 1 rotation player out of 7 years of drafts and even remotely succeed without spending a lot of money on players 4-9.
Bottom line, gotta have regularly-scheduled draft capital and gotta hit on it to keep the rotation player pipeline going (unless we're going to start getting ring-chasing vet mins), or else we'll stay in the lux tax to have a mediocre team.