I'll start with contract info and then move on to the bigger issues this topic revolves around.
There's good news and bad news with Pastner's contract. The good news is we are not paying him that much - $1.7MM this year, $1.9MM next year and it slowly raises every year to an eventual $2.3MM. $2.3MM is about the median number in the ACC, so we are paying him well under the median (he's probably the second lowest paid coach outside of Christian at BC). His first 2 yrs was supplemented by money from Memphis, that ends this spring.
Gregory's buyout ends this spring and Hewitt's last $900K pays out over the next year. None of that means GT is going to be in the market.
Because this is considered a big rebuild job Pastner's contract is 100% guaranteed through spring 2021. So if you fire him at any time before that you would owe him the full remaining balance of his contract. That likely would have been needed to hire any coach. Any coach who was interested would want guarantees they would be given time to turn things around and you do that through the contract. MBob had a handshake agreement with Bryce Drew but Vandy came in at the last minute and was able to snatch him away. GT then talked to 3-4 other potential coaches who decided to stay where they were until they got around to Pastner.
GT wasn't 2 yrs ago and still isn't yet in the position to make high money offers to attract really high level coaches. GT got into a little bidding war with Vandy for Bryce Drew topping out at around $2.2-2.3MM, but Vandy just went higher (rumored $2.7-2.8MM) to wrap him up.
Unless something comes up where Pastner is fired with cause, he is not going anywhere until 2021.
On to the bigger issues. My wife, a former auditor, read the big spread in the AJC today on Ron and Josh and then we spent some time talking about it, which is always fun as she puts on her auditor hat.
Her only issue with Pastner was the trip to AZ for JO and Tad. She feels that feels funny, like he should have known. I did tell her that both JO and Tad told both GT and the NCAA that they took that trip without telling Pastner and were told by Ron not to tell him. She's not 100% convinced with that story, but if they are consistent with it, so be it. She felt Pastner should have been more careful about who he allowed close to the program - that is on him (I agree with that), but she also saw how it appeared Josh was starting to try to distance himself from Ron and his gf but it ended up being too little, too late. She does feel bad for Pastner to the extent that it appears he was trying to help somebody and it ended up biting him in his a**. She also felt like the trip was hardly the worst thing schools were doing to try to win or keep kids, GT just happened to get caught doing something.
Her thoughts on Ron is that he is a con man and an extortion artist. She doesn't feel you can believe anything that comes out of his mouth. She also noticed that in the article he often says he can show the journalist something, but he seldom actually does - or at least it is never mentioned that he does.
She also believes that Ron is extorting his gf somehow. The fact she signed over half her house sounds very fishy. The calls by her parents to the police. My wife is actually quite upset over the assault charges because she believes they are bogus and that Ron is putting his gf up to them. She thinks the allegations don't fit what is known about Pastner and also feels the hotel room scene does not ring true.
She feels he is using the current environment to try to take down someone that has been nice to him and it could make it harder for women who are truly in that position to be heard.
My wife also finds it unlikely that GT has known about these charges for multiple months and has done nothing but sit on them - not with things like Penn St. She believes they likely have already investigated them internally.
Everyone has a right to make up his/her own mind but I found it interesting to talk to someone that tends to take a very critical eye to things and hasn't really been following it to this point and get her viewpoint. Both my wife and i share the opinion that if Pastner is found to have committed the alleged assaults he should be fired, but neither believe that likelihood is very high. My wife's final thought was that it is a shame that Pastner is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life when he likely as just trying to help someone who turned on him and just seems out to try to destroy him.