(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

To satisfy your Wizards fix, DCist is teaming up with Kyle Weidie and Rashad Mobley of Truth About It, who will take turns penning a column on Washington’s professional basketball team every week throughout the season. You can read Kyle and Rashad on all things Wiz here.

At the beginning of the 2010-2011 season, there was every reason to believe that Andray Blatche was going to vault himself from an inconsistent player to a bona fide All-Star candidate.

The previous year, the Washington Wizards were looking for a player to step up and be the proverbial “Man” on the team. Gilbert Arenas had been suspended. Caron Butler, DeShawn Stevenson, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood had been traded. The roster was full of talented, but unproven players — including Blatche, who, in his five years with the Wizards, had struggled with brushes with the law, inconsistency and just flat out being out of shape.

Blatche seized the opportunity, though, and went from averaging 8.9 points and 5.0 rebounds before the roster shake-up to 22.1 points and 8.3 rebounds afterwards. He set career-highs in every statistical category, and became the go-to player for the Wizards.

Blatche’s detractors could point to the Wizards 9-21 record during that span, and they also could focus on his spat with Coach Flip Saunders when he refused to re-enter a game, and was suspended. Still, the fact that Blatche was 23 years old and taking that big of a role on the court was an encouraging sign for a team that would have a healthy Arenas and a promising rookie in John Wall coming next season.