Steve Nash is basketball royalty in Canada. Not only is he first the NBA All-Star to ever hail from America's neighbor to the north, but the Phoenix Suns icon was also general manager of Team Canada for four years until stepping back this year to take a senior advisory role with the national program.

As a result, it's no surprise that Nash congratulated the Toronto Raptors on Monday for winning their first championship in franchise history, while also celebrating basketball's ever-accelerated popularity in his native country.

Nash, it bears reminding, joined the Golden State Warriors as a consultant in 2015 after finishing his playing career, taking special interest in player development. He grew especially close with Kevin Durant during the pair's time with Golden State, even helping the two-time Finals MVP break out of a minor shooting slump in November by pointing out a small hitch in his jumper at practice.

The Warriors, participating in an incredible fifth consecutive NBA Finals, were beaten by the Raptors in six games. Steve Kerr's team was bit by injury throughout the series, with Klay Thompson missing Game 3 with a hamstring injury before suffering a torn ACL in Game 6; Kevon Looney, who later fought through immense pain to return to the floor, also sitting out of Game 3 with torn cartilage in his chest; and Durant sustaining a ruptured Achilles tendon in Game 5, his first time back on the court in over a month after going down with a hamstring injury in the Western Conference Semifinals.

Nash, a two-time league MVP, was inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last year, his first of eligibility.