im really confused if OP is afraid that Z wouldnt accept a buy out, wouldnt come back if he was bought out, or a team wouldnt buy him out.
No matter what, its obviously Z WANTS to be on this team, and this team wouldnt trade him unless they knew he would come back, its that simple. Plus the cavs can build a buy out into the trade, as in "we will trade you Z but you MUST buy him out". Basically the only way Z is traded is if the cavs know he will come back.... end of thread.
I read recently in RCF that there was a rule change this year in the NBA that explicitly allows teams to stipulate buy-outs as part of trades and allows the buy-out to be negotiated prior to the trade -- so the Cavs would trade Z to Team X and Team X would then be required to buy Z out for a specified amount, presumably using money (probably $3m) provided by the Cavs to do so...In the past, I think you could potentially run into issues with the CBA on this point, but really I see no reason why this sort of clause should not be permitted, especially when you are actually providing the team with money for the purposes of the buy out. The player still doesn't have to agree to anything he doesn't want to agree to, and this sort of arrangement marginally increases the player's chances to sign with a team that actually wants him.
After the buy-out, the Cavs would then use the prorated vet minimum or the prorated BAE to resign Z. It's been my theory that the Cavs have reserved the BAE to use on Z, a small perk for him.
It's also been reported (by Windy, I think) that Ferry met with Z (his former teammate and personal friend) before the season where this sort of scenario was discussed. Despite the fiasco involving Z's record in games played, my sense is that everyone is on-board with the plan.
In fact, it was reported (not by Cleveland media though) that one condition of the Cavs' offer of Delonte West and s/t Wally for S-Jax was that Delonte would be bought-out by Golden State so he could return to the Cavs.
Remember too the Cavs, as ESPN (Broussard, I think) has recently reported, the Cavs were prepared to buy Denver's #34 pick in the '09 draft for $2m with the intent to draft DeJuan Blair....So it seems they still have some money budgeted for this sort of maneuver.
Regardless of whatever language (and money) is included in any trade, I can't imagine why any team the Cavs might trade Z to wouldn't want to buy him out. If a trade doesn't happen till the deadline, there'd be less than two months left in the season and it'd make absolutely no sense for a non-playoff type team to be playing a soon to be 35 year old who is clearly near the end of his career. It'd be better to pick someone out of the D-League at that point and give them the minutes.