Center Kara Braxton. returned to the Shock Thursday morning from Istanbul, Turkey, where she led her team to the championship game. “It feels good,” Braxton said. “I’m excited to be back around the girls. I missed them since we played last year. I’m just excited about playing Saturday.”

Braxton was eager to return but had confidence in her Shock teammates to take care of business until she returned.

“I wanted to come back but everybody has their roles here. I know where I fit in,” she said. “It’s not like I have to do it all like I do overseas, we have a lot of great players. I just fit into my role and do what I have to do for the team.”

Braxton’s role, however, has changed drastically since last season. The off-season trade of Ruth Riley. has elevated Kara Braxton from a key reserve to starting center for the defending champions. The seventh overall pick of the 2005 Draft by Detroit, Braxton played in all 44 regular-season and postseason games in 2006 but started only once. Braxton hasn’t had much time to adjust to her off-season promotion.

“That’s a totally new role for me so I’ve got to get comfortable with that,” Braxton said. “(I need to) be settled, calm because that’s not a situation I’ve been in with this team yet. But I think I can pull it together.”

Head coach Bill Laimbeer. already likes what he sees, saying Braxton “helped a lot” in Thursday’s practice. “The question mark was Kara, how she would come (in),” he said. “We hadn’t seen her play at all, but she looks spectacular right now and has a very good demeanor about her.”

First impressions may be deceiving - Braxton may even be better. She was weary from a long day of international travel, marred by layovers and missed flights until she arrived in Detroit Wednesday night. At 7 a.m. Thursday, she had a physical and then practice.

“I’m a little beat right now,” Braxton said, her voice hoarse. “I’ll probably pass out when I get home.”

Laimbeer was not sympathetic to her plight. “I don’t care, it’s what she has to do,” he said. “She has to come in to play and she’s ready to play.”

Braxton was the second Shock arrival this week. Cheryl Ford. found her way back to Detroit after playing in Russia. The WNBA’s reigning rebounding leader arrived in time for the Shock’s third preseason game and practiced with the team all this week.

Teammates the past two years, Braxton and Ford are not strangers, but Ford acknowledged they will have to develop a greater sense of familiarity with each other now that they are the Shock’s starting frontcourt. She sees it as only a matter of time.

“The chemistry is there,” Ford said. “It’s there, still the same as when we left.”

Though far away, Braxton and Ford were not forgotten. The Shock coaching staff, especially assistant coach Rick Mahorn, kept tabs on their players overseas.

“They called me everyday in the last couple of weeks I was there,” Ford said. “But I was pretty excited to get back and meet the new players and get back to that feeling with the girls. This is home. It’s always nice to come home.”

The 6-foot-6 Braxton, however, made a defensive adjustment and committed her first blocking foul of the season.

“I was kind of smart. I cut off my phone so they couldn’t call me,” Braxton said with a tired smile. “But they went through my agent.”