It wasn't an option to reduce the buyout before 5/1/19. His existing contract ran through 4/30/19, and KSU had nothing to offer him in exchange for reducing that buyout sooner.
His existing contract stays the same, with the exception of him having to tell KSU withing 72 hours of getting into serious talks about another job - and it'll be up to us to expose when that's happening a la when we broke the Marquette talks.
He now has a 2 year contract for 5/1/19 through 4/30/21 with a higher salary for those years but a much lesser buyout.
I imagine everyone in the negotiation knew that KSU wanted the ability to shitcan him at the earliest opportunity. Given that there was no way to do that cheaply before 5/1/19, they made this deal to try to pitch to dumb people that all is well.