Are you saying WF is paying Forbes more or less than that?
Forbes salary at ETSU was $650K and his buyout was $500K :
https://www.timesnews.net/Basketball/2018/02/19/ETSU-gives-Forbes-raise-extension.html
Guessing that WF paid the buyout (maybe). If WF is paying Forbes $1.5 million a year, they increased his salary almost 2.4 times during the worst economic crisis in the decades. WF had all of the leverage in this situation, and just paid the price for giving a basketball a coach a contract with terms that were unnecessarily generous. Money is an issue right now for the athletic department. Not saying that Currie low-balled Forbes, but no one else is hiring basketball coaches right now. Forbes is in his 50s, and does not have the time to wait to climb the coaching ladder. Have no idea of the terms of the WF/Forbes deal, but $1.5 million with healthy performance incentives seems about right to me.