Suppose you owned a football team and had a coach you wanted to fire, but you also wanted to weasel out of paying him the two years remaining on his contract.
You could just fire him anyway and renege on the contract, figuring that even if he sues he'll have a hard time collection. But why make a sworn enemy for life?
Instead, making a guy choose between his contractually obligated money and his dignity is a stroke of genius. Unless he decides to hold you to the money, perhaps on the theory that he's still young and has plenty of time to get his dignity back.
The Oakland Raiders: Commitment to Excellence taunting zoo animals but failing to get out of the way.