Are we simply able to waive Amir Johnson via amnesty or some other provision?
I ask this because if so, we could feasibly acquire a contract we don't want such as Rudy Gay to land DeMarcus Cousins given our cap flexibility...not saying we would want to but trying to clarify if this is an available option to us. Rud Gay is heading to free agency with Cousins so we aren't tied to him long as his expiring contract could be valuable in another trade following this...
No. The Amnesty Provision only applied to contracts signed before the new CBA was made. Waiving him would still leave his money on the books
Even if it were possible to get his money off the books, it wouldn't make any sense to do so (unless we were signing someone). It would make much more sense to send him out in a trade, since he could bring in ~$15 million on his own (as opposed to creating $12 million in cap space)
There's no way for us to bring in Cousins and Gay on a trade without sending out someone like AB, so that isn't going to haooen. If SAC wanted to get rid of Gay after trading us Cousins, a third team would need to be involved (and given his current contract, he has value both as an underpaid player and a likely expiring contract, so they could get something in return)