Dinwiddie: Nets have title aspirations if KD, Kyrie return this season

Spencer Dinwiddie feels the Brooklyn Nets will have championship aspirations if the team's stars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving make unlikely comebacks this season.

"They’re two of the hardest working guys in the NBA on the court, and two phenomenal players. If they are able to return and that’s the decision that they make, obviously our aspirations turn from playoffs to championship," Dinwiddie said Wednesday during an appearance on ESPN's "First Take."

"If they’re not able to return, which obviously they’ve pretty much said that’s kind of the stance that they’re taking, we still want to be a team that grinds and tries to get to the playoffs and makes a run in the playoffs," Dinwiddie continued. "But we also understand the talent that they add being two top-10 players in the league and KD being, in my opinion, the greatest scorer of all time."

Durant has been sidelined since last June after tearing his Achilles tendon, while Irving underwent shoulder surgery in March after appearing in only 20 games this season.

The league's plans to finish the campaign in an isolated location later this summer - likely at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando - lead to some hope that one or both of Durant and Irving could return once games resume.

Whenever Durant does come back, Dinwiddie believes he'll be able to produce at a high level.

"I look at it like this: At 80%, he’s Dirk Nowitzki. At 100%, he’s the best scorer of all time, and anywhere in between, he’s still, what, a top-three small forward in the league?" Dinwiddie said.

"I don’t see a world where he’s not one of the elite players in the NBA when he comes back," he added.

Earlier this month before significant momentum toward salvaging the season had built up, Durant's agent Rich Kleiman said it's "unrealistic" to expect the star forward to return.