As Syracuse coach Fred Brown stated; players need to worry about making plays and getting better, and I'll worry about the coaching stuff such as recruiting and scheme. "When they start trying to do your job, you (they) got to go."
100%. Even if the Nico camp actually was standing on recruiting/scheme and not money (hardy har har!) - "you got to go" and take your hostage-holding, head coach usurping mentality with you.
I don't think Nico was getting $4M under any circumstance, but his camp inserting themselves into coaching and holding out on the O&W game, going radio silence....well, you just can't have it. As far as JH and DW were concerned, Nico was out on two counts, either of them enough by itself to divorce Nico.
There won't be any media backlash when we take a guy from the portal.