If you want 3 max free agents on this team then you need to keep Crowder. You can't just ignore the severity of the luxury tax when building a team. There definitely isn't an appreciation of how oppressive the luxury tax is in this CBA.
Crowder's contract only helps if it lets you avoid a max contract, not if you want to add them. A $7M starter is a great deal. A $7M player behind Hayward, George and Brown isn't so awesome.
There is literally no scenario where we get George and Hayward so I don't know where that has come from. No way we could afford to pay them either...
This isn't true. There are multiple scenarios where we could get Hayward and George. They aren't scenarios that I would like but there are scenarios.
1. We could keep Zizic and Yabu overseas, renounce all our free agents and sign Hayward. Then we could trade Bradley and Crowder (plus picks) for George.
2. We could trade the first pick, plus Bradley for George and then deal Crowder to a team with cap space.
3. We could trade Isaiah and Bradley for George then move a small piece to clear space for Hayward.
As to your apprehension about paying a big tax bill, it's not like it's your money right? I think paying the tax is actually a good idea. Since Boston is a big market team, we have a competitive advantage in that we produce more revenue than other teams. We can take advantage of that by having a high salary and staying above the tax.
Even if we go into the tax this year or next it doesn't mean we will stay there. Jaylen won't be a free agent until after Al is gone and neither will Fultz. I don't see a problem with paying a high tax bill then when the veteran contracts are up we can cut ties with them and replace them with younger players.