“This is a little bit new. New faces, and new to the league,” Smith said after her first practice with the group Wednesday. Of the 10 players in the rookie-laden camp, she had played previously with only two.

“Kind of a new vibe to practice so [you] have to learn how to get yourself together but also help everybody else with the transition, to Detroit and what we’re about,” she said. “It’s all a learning experience, all good and good to have some new blood.”

Smith missed the first 10 days of camp to be with USA Basketball in China competing in the Good Luck Beijing Tournament, a tune-up for this summer’s Olympic Games, which also will be in Beijing.

In her first trip to China’s capital city (she had visited other parts of the country before), Smith and her USAB teammates visited several historical sites, including Tiananmen Square and the awe-inspiring Great Wall. “It’s just like, ‘How?’ ‘Why?’” Smith said. “It’s awesome and it’s beautiful - the mountains, it’s on the ridges and just very cool. A very neat site.”

In the gold medal game Saturday, Smith scored a team-high 16 points in an 84-81 loss to China. Smith played a team-high 38 minutes and scored all of his points from beyond the arc, where she was 4-of-7. Former Shock forward Swin Cash had 10 points and 10 rebounds for the U.S., which went 4-2 in the tournament.

Smith averaged 12.5 points in the six games. She shot 54.3 percent from the floor, including a scorching 51.5 percent (16-of-31) from 3-point range.

“Felt good shooting the ball, and hopefully it continues,” Smith said. “Just trying to get your feet under you with preseason, training camp, working through all that so I feel good. The body feels pretty good. Just want to make sure everything keeps going because it’s going to be a long summer but a fun summer.”

Smith said there was a steady diet of rice, duck, lamb and beef in Beijing, but they did manage to find a pizza place, “just like the States.” They also went into the markets, where players “got to barter a little bit, get some knockoffs, get a little silk. Some people got some suits made,” she said. “Beijing was good. They treated us well. People were really helpful.”

Rookies Shine in Las Vegas

Culturally speaking, Beijing and Las Vegas might be even farther apart than the 6,300 miles between them. Vegas is where the rest of the Shock were Monday for a three-team scrimmage against Houston and Sacramento. “We got through it reasonably healthy,” head coach Bill Laimbeer said, “that’s half the battle in the preseason.”

Detroit played three 10-minute quarters against each of the other two teams. Though it was her first taste of WNBA competition (that didn’t wear the same jersey), rookie Tasha Humphrey realizes the scrimmage was just a warm-up for the regular season. She expects the intensity to pick up as more veterans return from playing overseas.

“It was kind of like the pre-draft camp because all the veterans weren’t there,” Humphrey said. “There was like 2 or 3 [veterans] that I could see playing, but I think until we get a bunch of our veterans back and see a lot of other veterans in action, it will be hard to set that gauge and see what that gauge is.”

Laimbeer said Humphrey shot the ball well in Vegas. The No. 11 pick from Georgia hopes what the Shock newcomers learned in Vegas doesn’t stay there. “It was fun, it was a lot of fun. We won every game but two - we lost to Houston twice, and that wasn’t fun - but as a team, for the most part, I think we gelled and we highlighted some areas we were good at and some areas where we weren’t so good at,” like running the offense efficiently, Humphrey said. “We took a lot away from it.”

Laimbeer also liked what he saw from Natasha Lacy, whom the Shock selected from UTEP with the No. 28 pick. Lacy, one of several guards competing for a backup guard spot, strained a hamstring during the scrimmage. She had an ice pack wrapped around it following Wednesday’s practice.