That is way too much speculation though. We don't know if Fesenko will get 2 Million this year and an injury is very unlikely. Jazz would most likely just sign 10 day contracts throughout the year to stay at 13. And i've seen D-Leaguers get paid 400,000 for the year. Would a contract around that price still put us over?
And in your accounting did you take Gaines off the total salary (since he will be released)?
Look above:
Post trade: $68.34 million guaranteed (i.e. no Gaines, Jeffers, Evans, etc)
Margin for tax is $70.37 - $68.34 = $ 2.03 million
If Fesenko signs for the QO that gives the Jazz only $.98 million in breathing room.
In order to have even the $.98 million they have to release ALL non-guaranteed players. Not just Gaines. That means no Evans, no Jeffers, no Thompson.
That's 13 players under contract, one of which is already injured (Memo). Functionally, we'd have only 12 players. That's a razor thin margin for error and almost no money to operate with. If we keep a single rookie player on the non-guaranteed list it goes down to only $.5 million breathing room. If it's only Jeffers it goes down to about $.2 million breathing room.
If we keep any combination of two we're essentially at 0 or already over to start the season.
If Fes gets an offer from the Rockets we have to match we're probably already at zero before we talk about anyone else.
Injuries happen in this league and the margins we're talking about are so small that a single D-League signing could push us over. One major injury (Bell for example) and we're definitely going into tax town.
Counting on getting a big payout for being under the tax is a fantasy unless the Jazz plan on dumping more salary during the season. And that's an ******* move to the fans after doing a piss poor AK trade.