Charles Bassey reflects on his 'long, adverse' NBA journey through injuries
The Warriors center says his sixth NBA season, delayed again by a knee injury, shows how far he has come back from fractures, a torn ACL and stops in the G League.
Why Charles Bassey is trending
Charles Bassey, the Golden State Warriors center, is the name showing up in search because of a video the Warriors posted on social media in which he looked back on his career. "Obviously, I've had injuries and I'm still here, so it's been a long, adverse journey," Bassey said. He is in his sixth NBA season, and this one was already delayed by a knee problem that kept him out of Golden State's first two games.
Here is what is known. Bassey missed those first two games with knee tendinitis, then returned against Phoenix on Oct. 24 and scored 10 points with seven rebounds and two blocks, making all four of his field-goal attempts in just under 13 minutes of a 131-122 loss. What is not laid out anywhere is a firm plan for how the Warriors manage his minutes going forward, given that they already held him out once over the knee. What happens next, by his own account, is simply staying on the floor after he signed a one-year deal in July off a strong finish to last season.
A run of injuries that follows him
The adversity Bassey referenced is not vague. He was picked 53rd overall by Philadelphia in the 2021 NBA draft, but only after recovering from a tibial plateau fracture in his left leg that ended his sophomore season at Western Kentucky in December 2019.
The injuries kept coming once he reached the NBA. After joining San Antonio in 2022, Bassey averaged 5.7 points and 5.5 rebounds over 35 games before a patella fracture ended his season in March 2023. That December, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing for the Austin Spurs in the G League, ending another year early. He came back to appear in 36 games for San Antonio in 2024-25, but his next real opportunity came through the G League rather than an NBA roster spot.
From soccer in Nigeria to a Warriors roster spot
Bassey has said even picking up basketball took some convincing. "I was trying to sell chicken to this dude, but I didn't know he was a coach," he said, explaining how a basketball coach in Nigeria first talked to him while he was selling chicken and still focused on soccer. "It took me a minute to just give it a try but I finally did and I liked it," he said.
That decision led him to the United States and Western Kentucky. "I came to the States, and I went to college, got drafted into the league," Bassey said. From there it was Philadelphia, stops with Memphis and Boston, and time in the G League before Golden State picked him up in April.
Where things stand with the Warriors now
The numbers that got Bassey back to Golden State are specific. Across 20 G League regular-season games split between Delaware and Santa Cruz last season, he averaged 20.5 points and 12.5 rebounds, the only qualifying player in the league at that level in both categories. Golden State signed him late last season, he averaged 10.6 points and 7.2 rebounds over a five-game stretch, and that performance led to the one-year deal he signed in July.
The team around him has been moving without him some nights. The Warriors' most recent result had Golden State beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 119-114, with Stephen Curry scoring 44 points to help the team hold on. Bassey's job now is to stay healthy enough to keep adding minutes to a roster that is already finding ways to win.
Facts per ESPN, ESPN box score. Opinion is the taproom's.