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When training camp opened nearly a month ago, Randy Foye said he was brought in by the Jazz to be a shooter. After last year, they needed one. Instead of a spot-up role, however, coach Tyrone Corbin has given Foye a considerable amount of time at the point guard position, going as far as starting him in place of Mo Williams on Thursday against the Blazers.

Foye started ahead of Jamaal Tinsley, who Corbin said he likes with the second unit. It's an interesting move for the Jazz. On one hand, Corbin may just be trying to establish a contingency plan for a situation in which the Jazz are down two point guards and need Foye as a backup. On the other, he may see Foye getting significant time handling the ball.

"Some nights matchups will dictate it," Corbin said. "Some nights it's the rotation."

Foye is playing for his fourth team in seven seasons after being drafted in the lottery in 2007. In that time, little has been consistent for the guard who signed a one-year deal with the Jazz in the offseason. But this sequence of events is familiar, he said.

"I usually start off [with a new team] at point," Foye said, "but I've scored the ball so well in the league that usually it's, 'All right, let him score, let him shoot.'"

Foye averaged 11 points per game last year with the Clippers, and entered Thursday's game averaging 7.1 for the Jazz.

"I think he's done a great job of learning to be effective for us with the ball in his hands some," Corbin said, "and without the ball at the two spot."

The Jazz have three bona fide veteran point guards on their roster in Williams, Tinsley and Earl Watson, who is currently recovering from April knee surgery. If one of those other guys goes down, Foye is the next choice.

"To me all point guard is, really, is being the general," Foye said. "Being the coach on the floor, coach tell me the plays, I get the team in it. If he don't I have sets that I try to run, but the main thing to me when I'm out there at the point. I just try to be understand that I can't be aggressive, when I'm at the point."

— Bill Oram