Unit sprites are basically the same thing as units, unless you disable them or something. They are removed in Melee maps, however, all other sprites, such as weapon sprites and such, are not removed.
So in answer to your question, Yes, but it's not really a sprite at that point.
UndeadStar -- https://staredit.net/topic/18961/ <= wow, if there wasn't a capital letter on almost every word in the title, and a link in the signature, I may not have guesses it's an AI bot. I don't know much about map editing, but the content may even be relevant enough to be kept.