Nope, they're not... not without a lot of workarounds.
You can't control the order that the WHERE clause decides to apply the filters in. You can't even control if a WHERE clause fires before or after a conversion of data in your select statement.
The primary way to control for things like that is using temp tables to control event orders. There IS a switch to use, called OPTION ( FORCE ORDER), that combined with subqueries can give you that kind of control. I recommend you don't go near it until the answers to questions like this are second nature. It's incredibly easy to shoot yourself in the foot when 95% of the time a #table does what you need and keeps you from doing that.
Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.
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