Totally agree—if you're going to have a salary cap, then actually enforce it. The current system is like trying to enforce rules in a game while letting one player use cheat codes. These buyout deals completely break the spirit of the cap.
It reminds me of Geometry Dash Lite: the difficulty spikes out of nowhere, and just when you think things are fair, boom—some levels let others glide through while you're stuck restarting from the beginning over and over.