I guess it just comes down to very different expectations on how long a rebuild really takes.
To me, this
is the early stages of a rebuild. The dark times are likely coming, like you say...one way or another. But there's movement toward integrating youth and looking toward the future. And not much sense in racing to the bottom...when you have two of the ~top-10 most productive players in the entire league, and one of the better top defensive "shutdown" pairings. Those are major building blocks of a playoff team imo, the kind of pieces that teams "tank" for...and aren't going anywhere - making a "blow it up" race to the bottom an unrealistic option - even if mailing it in on multiple seasons were a desirable culture to install.
Just really hard to wrap my head around the mentality of "fans" who find a playoff appearance "disappointing". As though in a hurry to be terrible, and winning games is somehow getting in the way of the highly enjoyable exercise of losing every possible game...in pursuit of some distant possibility of one day 5+ years from now,
maybe having once again a pair of top-10 scorers and an above average top defensive pairing...if things go exceptionally well. When these are pieces that we already have in place now...