Jae Crowder Comments on Celtics' Recruitment of Kevin Durant

Boston Celtics forward Jae Crowder pulled out all the stops to recruit Kevin Durant in free agency but was more than disappointed when KD chose the Golden State Warriors instead.

Speaking from the Basketball Hall of Fame on Thursday, Crowder outlined how aggressive the process was to lure Durant—including how the Celtics divulged information they perhaps wished they wouldn't have—per ESPN.com's Chris Forsberg (warning: NSFW language):

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We were the only team in the NBA to beat [Cleveland and Golden State] on their home court. The only team in the NBA, the Boston Celtics. We told him that. We played him clips from both games and told him basically the scouting report of how we guarded Steph [Curry] and Klay [Thompson] -- our entire game plan, basically. That's what made me mad. We f---ing told him everything we do to beat these guys, and we beat them, and he went and joined them.

Afterward, I was talking to Isaiah [Thomas], like maybe after you sit back, [we] shouldn't have told him everything, but who the f--- thought he was going to Golden State, realistically? It was like a slap in the face for us, basically.

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Although the Celtics did do well to land former Atlanta Hawks big man Al Horford on the open market and could still make more moves, Durant would have been a true game-changer. 

Crowder mentioned how New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was part of the contingent that tried to persuade Durant to put on a Celtics uniform:

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The pitch, what he talked about was the city of Boston and the fans and how [Brady] embraced it. It was great. I think Kevin needed to hear that. He wanted to hear how it was living in Boston, and Brady told him about the fans. I know [about the fans]; just like everybody knows. We told him: They're really very passionate about their club and they really want to win. If you don't do that, they let you hear it. But it's all out of passion and all out of respect of the game. They want to win; it's all about championships here.

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Even the services of Tom Terrific and his four championships couldn't prevent Durant from signing elsewhere.

Despite his relative excitement over Horford's arrival and overall optimism about the current team, Crowder acknowledged that without Durant or someone of his caliber, Boston isn't a realistic contender:

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I just text [Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge], trying to see where everything is going. "After [Durant's decision], I just asked like, 'Well, what's the direction now?' And he said, 'We're still trying to make moves.' So that means we're still active. And we still have a lot of assets, we still have a lot of young players. So we gotta figure it out. We can be as aggressive as we want to. But I do feel like we're one or two pieces away still.

[...] [Horford]'s going to help us out a lot. And last year we won 48 games without a guy of his nature. I just think that right there, what people see, speaks volumes. He can help us out a lot.

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And Crowder would be right. Much of the Celtics' recent success can be attributed to the phenomenal job that coach Brad Stevens has done with a roster bereft of elite players.

For example, Isaiah Thomas arrived in a trade during the 2014-15 campaign after the Phoenix Suns opted to roll with two of their own point guards over him. Thomas has played well during his time in Boston and averaged 22.2 points per game this past season, but he's not the chief catalyst on a true championship team.

Somehow Boston won 48 games last season by playing fast, hustling on defense and shooting a lot of three-pointers—despite converting them at only a 33.5 percent clip as a team.

Horford is a versatile player who can defend the 4 or 5 and create matchup problems on offense at either position.

Other than Horford and Thomas, though, the rest of the starting five is hardly postseason-worthy. Crowder had to recognize it wasn't a mistake Boston drafted Jaylen Brown No. 3 overall this year as his eventual replacement in the starting five.

But so long as Stevens is roaming the sidelines and the Celtics continue to buy into his teachings, they can remain among the better teams in the Eastern Conference.