On the Shaq piece – $20mm is a huge. But It is still less than Marion and Banks make combined.

Banks in the second year of a five-year, $21.3 million contract. Marion gets $17mm/year.

That doesn’t account for the marketing power of Shaq – between jerseys, promotions, and tv… it’s a major win (Phoenix has already been on ESPN 3 times since the trade!).

Yahoo!’s still the most trafficked site on the Web. Even though it’s search share is declining, its acquisition would immediately make adCenter – or whatever a merged platform would be called – a major player in search. If it goes off, it should be a very good deal for Microsoft depending on what they have to pay. Shaq on the other hand…well, your point about his money coming off the books in 2 years is good. Just keep in mind that the money is massive.