Okay, here's the deal with the Tony Bradley trade. It's less about the Jazz avoiding the luxury tax ($132.6M) and more about them staying under the luxury tax apron ($138.9M).

Here are the Jazz's salaries as it stands now. At $111M with 8 guaranteed players. https://twitter.com/danclayt0n/status/1329288806676131847

Based on how negotiations are going, it looks like Clarkson is going to get at least $9M, but maybe more like $12M. So now you're at $120-$123M with 6 more players to sign/keep.

But here's the deal: there are different versions of the MLE. If the Jazz use the big $9.2M mid-level exception, then they're hardcapped at $138.9M. If they ever want to go over that number, they can only use the $5.7M mid-level exception.

So the choices were:
A) keep Bradley ($3.5M), keep Clarkson ($9-$12M), use $5.7M MLE, use $3.6M BAE, to get to $133M-$136M with 12 players or
B) dump Bradley, use $9.2M MLE, & hope that the $18M remaining under the hardcap is enough to resign Clarkson and fill ~5 remaining spots

They chose Option B, which cost them the No. 38 pick. But it also allows them to get a better player for the mid-level exception.

If they kept Bradley, there's only $14.5M to resign Clarkson and fill 4 spots, and that's probably not enough.

It's an ugly piece of business to spend a really good second-round pick to dump a first-round option you picked up a year ago, but the apron not rising as expected this year didn't give them the expected room to work with.

Hopefully that makes sense.