More offense from A.K.?

BOISE — A season ago, he went public with his desire to be made a more integral part of the Jazz's offense.

Now, Andrei Kirilenko believes he is ready for yet more responsibility on the offensive end of the floor — and coach Jerry Sloan seems willing to give it to him, if Kirilenko can prove he indeed is up to the task.

"I have to see what's going on with him this year," said Sloan, whose club on Saturday completed a workweek's worth of training camp at Boise State University and returned to Utah.

"See how he plays," Sloan added. "See how he responds to who he's playing with."

See, in other words, Andrei run.

Run, that is, the plays Sloan and his staff have in mind for a team that appears to finally have the talent to play a more up-tempo style than it has in any recent season gone by.

Doing so will require a little give on the part of Kirilenko, who at times tends to try doing too much on his own — and some give on Sloan's part, too.

"I'm not saying 'Be with the program more,'" Sloan said. "But he's like me — I have to adjust to what I think is going to give us the best opportunity. ... The bottom line is winning.

"If it's him handling the ball more, I don't have a problem with that. If it's him making more decisions, and we're succeeding — those are things we have to look at."

Don't think Sloan's open-mindedness suggests Kirilenko will be given a 48-minute-long green light.

"I don't think there is any player I would turn the ball over to completely," the Jazz coach said.

But there may be more yellow than red, maybe even more green than yellow.

Color Kirilenko hue-happy.

"I will try to be more aggressive, probably, offensively," he said. "But I still want to be the same team player. Because I think that's my game — I mostly think I'm more a team player, not an individual player, one-on-one player, whatever."

Kirilenko's ammo for suggesting he should get more quality touches centers on what he insists is vastly improved shooting. The forward from Russia said he spent nearly two months this past offseason working in the Los Angeles area with a coach supplied by the IMG sports agency.

Consider it a summer of intense focus on his trigger release.