The landing pad wasn’t really at risk. If they had hit it it would have been relatively low speed, by the time it was at the catch attempt it was at like 30 km/h or something. Hitting a big steel object at that speed would have probably done more damage to the booster than anything else

Not necessarily, the launch tower is something like a half billion dollar piece of infrastructure and if it had been damaged or leveled it would have been an enormous setback in terms of money and time, as the second tower is nowhere near ready