Jae Crowder on move from Heat to Suns, ‘I look like a genius, huh?’

Jae Crowder never wanted the last laugh. All he wanted was a multiyear Miami Heat contract.

His consolation prize is a trip to the Western Conference finals, a season after helping lead the Heat to the NBA Finals.

With Sunday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns that completed a 4-0 sweep, the Denver Nuggets capped the reality that none of last season’s NBA conference finalists won a game beyond this season’s first round, with the Heat, Boston Celtics and defending champion Los Angeles Lakers all bowing out in their opening series.

And then there is Crowder, who joined the Suns on a three-year, $29 million free-agent contract in November, and now is playing on, to face the winner of the Utah Jazz-Los Angeles Clippers series in the Western Conference finals.

“I look like a genius, huh?” Crowder said of his relocation and the Suns’ unexpected success. “I know I look like a genius a little bit with my decision.

“And when I made the decision, you should have saw how many text messages I got, like, ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘Why you going to Phoenix, they haven’t made the playoffs in 10 years?’”

It was during last season’s quarantine bubble at Disney World amid the coronavirus pandemic that the Suns completed their 2019-20 regular season by sweeping all eight of their closing games there, including a victory over the Heat, before falling just short of the playoffs. Crowder scored 17 points in that Heat loss . . . and apparently also took notice.

“I just knew what type of group these guys were,” he said in the wake of Sunday night’s series-clinching victory in Denver. “I felt like they were hungry. They wanted to do some special things and I just wanted to be a part of it.

“And I honestly feel like it’s all coming together for us, for not only myself, but for our team and for our organization, because everybody’s on the same page. We’re all fighting for the same goal. I mean, you’ve got a lot of selfless guys on our team and you see how we play each and every night. We play for one another.”

Crowder was forced into a Plan B after the Heat limited their offer to the 30-year-old journeyman forward to a single guaranteed season, amid hopes, at the time, of a possible run this summer at Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. He then re-upped with the Bucks months later.

It was Crowder who helped contain Antetokounmpo during last season’s 4-1 Heat victory over the Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals. In the void of Crowder, the Heat were swept 4-0 by Milwaukee and Antetokounmpo in this season’s opening round.

For Crowder, this will be his third trip to a conference finals in five years, having also advanced this deep with the 2017 Celtics.

While others who went deep into 2020 playoffs, which did not end until Oct. 11, have spoken of fatigue, Crowder said that experience helped steel him for this post-Heat success.

“That helped a lot,” he said. “I mean, mentally it was a challenge for me. It wasn’t so much about the game of basketball, just the mental part of being away from family, being in a restricted area for myself for 96 days, I spent 96 days in there, playing the last Finals game. And it just got to be tough mentally a little bit.

“But other than that, it definitely helped me grow. It helped me on my game a little bit. I was able to go to the gym multiple times throughout the day, because I just felt it was the only thing to keep my mind working, to keep me in my sanity.

“I just felt like the bubble helped grow things for my mentality. And I think for our young guys here, it just prepared us for this moment.”