LeBron James gives his flowers to co-host Steve Nash for revolutionizing basketball with '7 seconds or less' offense

Long before Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, the league had Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns.

With coach Mike D'Antoni at the helm, their 'seven seconds or less' offense kept defenders on their toes. They pushed the break over and over, and even if the defense could get a stop or force a miss, they just kept going at it for 48 minutes.

Other teams couldn't keep up with that pace at the time, and they had one of the most entertaining teams to watch in NBA history.

With that in mind, LeBron James wanted to give Nash and his former coach his flowers. Talking on Tuesday's episode of their "Mind the Game" podcast, James claimed that they were ahead of their time and laid the blueprint for modern basketball:

"I don't think that you and I don't think that Mike get enough credit for revolutionizing the game," James said. "They always talk about players. They talk about how transcendent a player can be. ... With your style of play, how you and D'Antoni mirrored so easily to transcend the game; that is the game today."

Unfortunately, Nash and D'Antoni couldn't get over the hump in the playoffs, but they were a perennial force in the Western Conference.

D'Antoni's run-and-gun style has been replicated over and over. He was even quite close to taking down the Warriors and beating them with their strategy when he coached the Houston Rockets.

Steve Nash explains why his signature dribble was flawless

Although he won two NBA MVP awards, Steve Nash's numbers weren't always the flashiest. He averaged 14.3 points per game in his career.

However, he was still one of the most dangerous men in the game when he was on the court. His signature dribble, drawing a U below the basket, kept opposing defenders on their toes because they didn't know what to expect or guard:

“I created confusion,” Nash told LeBron. “I changed an opponent’s perspective. They had to look around in ways that made them uncomfortable, where they couldn’t see both – the ball and the man they were guarding.”

We've seen Stephen Curry and Chris Paul take a page from his book and take this approach over and over, and it rarely fails.

As Nash explained, that forced defenders to take their eyes away from him, giving him a chance to cut, pull up or find the open man.

Steve Nash is one of the most influential players of all time, a member of the exclusive 50/40/90 club, and someone who led the league in assists five times. Ring or no ring, he's right there near the top of the best point guards ever.