Marques Bolden to Duke: Blue Devils Land 5-Star Center Prospect

Coveted center prospect Marques Bolden decided to continue his basketball career at Duke on Thursday.   

Bolden commented on his Blue Devils commitment via Twitter:

In an interview with Evan Daniels of Scout.com, Bolden explained his reasons for choosing the Blue Devils, specifically highlighting the staff:

"

Really just the relationship I had with the coaching staff. I was trying to make everything perfect and trying to figure everything out and try to figure out the perfect situation for me and I realized that not everything was going to be exactly how I wanted it, so I just found the closest thing to it.

"

Bolden is a 5-star prospect who ranks inside the top 20 overall for the Class of 2016, according to 247Sports' composite rankings. He also checks in as the No. 2 center in the class and was recruited by multiple top programs before making his decision.

With Bolden's decision, Duke has surpassed Kentucky for the No. 1 recruiting class in 2016, per 247Sports' team rankings. 

He's a prototypical post prospect in that he's very much a developing talent. The raw tools are there to become a star—size, quickness, athleticism and instincts—but only recently has he started to translate that into solid basketball on a regular basis.

How long it will take for him to round out his skill set is a mystery. Things click for some players quicker than for others. But getting consistent minutes right away in college, as should be the case with Bolden, will help the process.

Bolden understands there's still a lot of work to do, though. He explained to Richard Dean of USA Today what he was focusing on with college on the horizon.

"I definitely need to get stronger," Bolden said. "I get pushed around too easily a lot of times. I need to get in the weight room and get stronger. And then become more mobile and be able to handle the ball, and hit the 15-footer."

Adding more strength to his frame is definitely crucial before he eventually makes his way to the NBA. If he plans on considering the one-and-done route like many top recruits, the importance of doing so quickly obviously increases.

Otherwise, it comes down to coaching and gaining experience—learning how to use his talent to make an impact at both ends of the floor through technique rather than just being bigger and better than his opponents, as is often the case at the high school level.

One of the Blue Devils' Achilles heels last season was a lack of size inside. They tied for 167th in rebounding, averaging just 36.3 per game, per ESPN.com. 

Bolden's potential is sky-high, but don't be surprised if there are some rough patches along the way.

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski has done an outstanding job with high-end recruits lately, turning Jahlil Okafor and potentially Brandon Ingram into high draft picks. 

Bolden's ceiling will be determined by his work ethic at Duke, but the physical gifts are there for him to be the next in a long line of stars Krzyzewski has recruited to the program.