If you release a player with a guaranteed contract, what happens. You have to pay the whole contract anyway but open up a spot?
Yeah. I think if someone else picks up that player, they come off your books (or the amount that the other teams pays them is deducted from the amount you have to pay) but the player still counts against your cap and everything. If my memory is correct.
It seems like a safe bet that Zoran Dragic is going to be cut. There isn't a palce for him on the roster and he's unlikely to play his way in. This is why the C's got some money out of Miami in the trade.
We can assume that the rookies and newly signed players are staying. I think we can also cross off Bradley, Smart, Sullinger, Thomas, Turner, Zeller, Olynyk from the list of possible cuts given how involved they were last season. James Young is almost certainly safe, if only because he hasn't been given his chance yet. All of the work put in by the staff to get him ready for the NBA would have been for nothing if he doesn't even get an opportunity to play. David Lee and his giant contract are unlikely to be cut, even if it turned out he was completely washed up (which no one thinks is the case). By process of elimination (and because, like Dragic, the C's got some money from OKC in the trade that brought him here) that leaves Perry Jones as the last man standing if a cut needs to happen.
All that said, I'd be really surprised if another trade doesn't happen before opening day and I really hope it does because I have high hopes the Brad can harness some of PJ3's talent.