Nets coach Steve Nash: 'We're playing for a championship'

New Brooklyn Nets coach Steve Nash isn't quite adopting a "title or bust" mantra this fall, but the Hall of Fame player realizes the high expectations hovering over a team that's set to feature superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving whenever the 2020-21 NBA season begins amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

"We're playing for a championship," Nash said during a virtual town hall with season-ticket holders on Tuesday afternoon, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN. "I don't want to say that anything less than a championship is not a success because you never know what happens in life, you never know the way the ball bounces. Fortune is a big part of winning an NBA championship.

"But we are playing for a championship and we're going to build accordingly. We're going to frame everything we do in the lens of, 'Is this a championship characteristic?' or 'Is this worth championship quality?'"

Durant missed the entire 2019-20 campaign, his first with the Nets, recovering from the torn Achilles tendon he suffered during the 2019 NBA Finals while playing for the Golden State Warriors. Irving, meanwhile, appeared in only 20 games for Brooklyn as he dealt with lingering shoulder issues until the NBA temporarily halted the season on March 11 due to the health crisis. 

Neither Durant nor Irving participated in the NBA restart held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. It's believed both will be ready to play if the Association starts a shortened regular season on or around Dec. 22.