Sorry, the trade exception would NOT have occurred without the Deron trade. Call it serendipity if you like, but NJ was DESPERATE after Lopez went down because they felt Deron would think they weren't interested in winning. That is what enabled KOC to ship out Memo wihtout taking back any salary. So no trade exception without the trade and Lopez injury. Jazz would have let Memo's contract expire. And Okur got hurt; he was worth ZERO after just a couple of weeks.
Without the Deron trade, we would not have had an asset Atlanta wanted (a PG).
And I'm not asserting that a 33 year old Deron can get $33M. But over the course of 4 years, he can EASILY get $7M-$8M or more per year in endorsements in a larger market vs. Utah. And that's an extremely conservative estimate. So in reality, he earns as much in 4 years as he would in 5 in Utah.
You'll never be convinced Deron was not going to re-sign with the Jazz, despite the overwhelming evidence that he would not. Even Carlos Boozer had better things to say than Deron. Carlos mentioned a raise, regardless, which indicated he was just about the money. Deron never said anything similar. And if you recdall, the Jazz DID offer him a 5 year deal when they had the chance. But he chose 3 instead.