LAS VEGAS – A grueling, frustrating, seemingly-endless year of rehab taught Marques Bolden a lesson he will never forget.
Every rebound secured, shot blocked and step taken on his surgically repaired right Achilles tendon is to be cherished by the Warriors center.
“It taught me not to take each day for granted,” Bolden told the Bay Area News Group after completing a strenuous practice at the Las Vegas Basketball Center on Thursday afternoon.
And now, almost exactly a year after being felled by the same injury that has devastated stars Tyrese Haliburton, Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum in recent weeks, Bolden is ready to resume his basketball journey on the same Thomas & Mack Center court it was put on pause.
“When you get hurt with an injury like that, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Bolden said. “You’re just focused on the present time. So for me to be back out here and playing and practicing again, I’m just happy to be running up and down.”
Another lesson was learned by Bolden on that day he was injured in Las Vegas.
He had woken up with a sore calf, but shrugged it off. After all, athletes are seldom without some sort of ache or pain when playing at a high level. In hindsight, he would have done things differently.
“Like, I thought that if you get a good warm-up in, you’ll be OK,” Bolden remembered. “But I guess it was something more than that.”
Bolden was unable to walk on his injured tendon for three months, and staying positive was often a struggle. He credited his immediate family and friends for keeping him upbeat.
He also leaned upon his fellow Duke alumni for support.
The 27-year-old regularly talks with former NBA lottery pick and former college national champion Jahlil Okafor, who also tore his Achilles in 2022 and was able to provide Bolden with advice during his rehab.
Okafor was not the only former Blue Devil to uplift Bolden.
“Do what you always do,” is what legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told his former player. “You follow (doctor’s) orders, and you do the rehab and just be patient and stay strong.”
That was given not as “orders” from a coach to a player, but from one basketball peer to the other.
“I’m proud to be his friend, not just his former coach,” Krzyzewski told the Bay Area News Group on Friday morning.
Golden State Warriors’ Marques Bolden (20) gains a rebound against the Los Angeles Lakers’ Darius Bazley (36) in the second quarter of an NBA Summer League game at Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, July 5, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
A little under a year after his injury, Bolden had a similar message for onetime Duke teammate Tatum after the Celtics superstar suffered an Achilles injury in a playoff game against the Knicks.
“I let him know that there’s definitely better days ahead,” Bolden said. “I know that when you first get hurt, when somebody says that, they feel like they’re the only person who feels that way. It’s tough to see that. So I just try to give him some encouragement.”
Krzyzewski was not surprised that his former pupil, who arrived at the college powerhouse as a top-ranked recruit out of DeSoto Texas in 2016 and left in 2019 as a dependable presence in the middle, remained close with his former Duke teammates.
“We have a brotherhood, and you’re talking about three exceptional human beings in Marques, Jahlil and Jayson,” Krzyzewski said. “Our guys look after one another like brothers.”
Unlike many high-profile members of the “brotherhood,” Bolden’s career has not been one of a star, the one exception being his stints with the Indonesian national team as a naturalized citizen.
He has played in 18 NBA games, spending most of his career in the G-League as a traditional, workmanlike center who has used his 6-foot-10 frame and athleticism to carve out a niche at the end of NBA benches as a lob threat and rim protector.
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“He’s still the player that we saw last year, that was really positive for us,” Warriors Summer League coach Lainn Wilson told this news organization.
As someone whose NBA career was already not guaranteed, losing a step could shut the door forever on playing in the world’s top league. Bolden believes he is back to about 80% of where he was pre-injury and is getting closer to fully healthy each day.
In two games at the recent California classic, Bolden showed that his rebounding prowess did not diminish during his year-long absence from the court, grabbing the second-most boards (10) on the team despite missing one game.
“I want to show that I’m still an athlete,” Bolden said. “An Achilles injury could be seen as a red flag to some, and so I just want to erase the narrative of me not being able to move the same, or me not being able to pick up where I left off.”
