After winding their way through the regular season and finishing with the best record in the Western Conference at 65-17, the Lakers had to fend off challenges in the playoffs from Utah, Houston - in seven games - and Denver before dispatching the Orlando Magic in five games in the Finals to be crowned champions.

To Skiles, watching the playoffs from the sideline offered a reminder of just how hard it is to win in the postseason, which is something he wants his players to keep in mind as the team's building process moves forward.

"You get away from it and start watching the playoff games and if you've been in the playoffs before and now you're not, you're watching them and you see what it takes to play at that level," Skiles said. "You see what it takes to win a series. It's just a constant reminder of how hard it is. It's hard.

"One thing we're continually trying to impress upon our guys is that this should be fun. Everybody would like to have a job where they enjoy it. But still there's a lot of (stuff) you've got to go through to be that type of team and it's hard. There's a lot of stuff you have to play through. The season is long. All the stuff everybody knows. It's very, very difficult and the more we can understand that (the better).

"When guys work out this summer and work on their games and conditioning, sure they should enjoy it and enjoy the game, but they should always have an eye toward how hard it's going to be if we are going to get where we want to go and how everything they are doing right now is pushing them toward that direction."

The Bucks are far from being a championship contender yet it remains the ultimate goal. The next step is just to get into the playoffs, something they have failed to do in the last three seasons and four of the last five. The hope is that a foundation was laid last season upon which to build a playoff team.

But that would only be a start. The general rule in the NBA - the champion Boston Celtics were an exception in 2008 - is that it's a slow and agonizing process to work your way up the playoff ladder.

Orlando was eliminated in the first round of the 2007 playoffs and was knocked out of the conference semifinals in 2008 before advancing to the NBA Finals this season for the first time since 1995. After losing to Detroit in the 2004 NBA Finals, the Lakers missed the playoffs entirely in 2005. They worked their way back up to the top since then.

In the Eastern Conference, teams such as Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Miami have overcome down years and have established themselves as playoff teams again.

"I don't want this to sound too negative and I hope it doesn't come off like that," Skiles said. "But what we have isn't good enough. Even when healthy, our record wasn't so far above .500 that if you project that forward, we'd be a home-court advantage team.

"The history of the teams who get all the way to the top is to first get in, then get in and take your lumps, then advance and take your lumps. . . . That's how it's happened. We understand that but at the same time our vision and goal has to be to be a perennial contender. That's just not going to happen (overnight).

"So when I say that we're not good enough even when healthy, what I mean is we're not a contender yet. Not that we're not good enough to make the playoffs. It's easy for me to sit here and say as a coach that I believe that if we were healthy we would have made it. That and a couple Bucks will get you . . . well, you know."

When Skiles talks about being a contender, he's talking about being a championship contender. Not just a playoff contender.

"I mean a legit contender for the whole thing," he said. "That's the goal. That's what we want to do. We want to be a perennial home-court advantage team, a perennial team that's going to be right there all the time. We're not that type of team right now. We've got a ways to go."

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