The Sparks own the league's best record, the longest winning streak in WNBA history and will enter the playoffs as the odds-on favorite to break the Houston Comets' four-year control over the championship. But that and $3.45 will buy you a tall mocha latte, as the Sparks discovered last year when they started the postseason with nearly the same pedigree and found themselves swept out of the conference finals by -- you guessed it -- the Comets.

Shaq gives the Sparks some winning advice: 28.8+ | ISDN+

Take the lessons learned from last year, add their superb regular season and the Sparks certainly have a solid foundation upon which to make their title run. Still, the best of the best know that success is a constant educational process and for the top advice available, the Sparks need to look no further than their male counterparts, just coming off a second straight NBA championship. In fact, the Sparks' biggest cheerleader (metaphorically and literally) is Lakers center and two-time Finals MVP Shaquille O'Neal, whom you know is never at a loss for words of wisdom.

"Michael Jordan told me once after they beat us that in order to be a winner, you have to first learn how to fail," O'Neal says. "The Sparks are a great team. They only lose three or four games every year; then they meet the Comets in the playoffs and they lose. And I think (the Sparks) just keep getting hungrier and hungrier. The Comets can't win forever. Hopefully this is the year that when they meet in the playoffs, the Sparks will be angry. They'll be thinking, this is the team that always sends us home. Hopefully they'll have the fire to send them over the top."

O'Neal knows that of which he speaks. Coming into the professional ranks with all the pomp and circumstance that accompanies a No. 1 draft pick who's also 7-3, 330 lbs., O'Neal led the Magic to the NBA Finals in his second season.

But the ring remained elusive. After a sweep by the Houston ... er, Rockets in 1995, O'Neal would not even get another chance at the Finals for another four years. Disappointment in Orlando turned into disappointment in Los Angeles and he swore to himself that if he ever got back, there would be no losing. Of course, O'Neal did return to the Finals, as a Laker in each of the two past years. And both times, he came away with the ultimate prize.

"To be the best you have to beat the best and the Comets are the best right now, so for the Sparks to win it, they have to go out and take (Houston)," O'Neal says. "When I was in Orlando, we kept losing to Chicago, kept losing to Indiana. When I came to L.A., Utah just dismantled us one year and then the Spurs swept us the next year. I said to myself, to the team, Kobe, I'm tired of losing to these guys. It's our turn now. Hopefully the Sparks have that same mentality. And I'm sure they will."

However, O'Neal reminds the Sparks not to rest on their regular season laurels and certainly not to overlook what appears to be a weakened Comets team after the injury to Sheryl Swoopes and the retirement of Cynthia Cooper. As the four-time defending champions, Houston remains the best until someone else proves otherwise. And as O'Neal is well aware, winning begets winning, making the Comets very dangerous come playoff time.

"Winning is very contagious. Once you learn to go out and win, it's something that you never lose. It has to be taken away from you," O'Neal warns. "The Comets have a lot of great role players who have been there when they've had the big three (Swoopes, Cooper, Tina Thompson). I went to a Comets game (earlier in the season) and they move the ball very well; they shoot the ball very well and big Tina is no joke. However, if the Sparks do what they have to do, they can beat the Houston team."