You mght wantto take another look at my buddies roster after the acquisitions. DMIs puts Hrudeys best players at around 120 and 90 DMI. Salary around 10k realm. My buddy has DMIs and salaries which double or triple. I really don7t like the SF he is selling though. I guess thats why he is selling! LOL
I'm not sure those are necessarily my 'best' players, just the highest salary/DMI ones. And I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know far better than me when I point out that there are plenty of nearly-free skills for certain positions, which impact salary very little (and DMI, as it appeared to be calibrated so DMI at proficient GS = 10 times calculated salary, though I don't know if the DMI formula was adjusted when the seasonal salary ones are updated). And often, those "free" skills are also not directly reflected in match ratings. But they sure do seem to matter when the games are actually played!
So, yeah, I'm not exactly rocking the 30k salary centers with pitiful handling or forwards with inept defense or whatever else. When you set a TL search to average+ handling, passing and OD and best position C or PF, (well, and for me, narrowed to Americans, though that's of dubious value), you find some guys that are really quite poor indeed, the occasional guys who are extremely good and extremely expensive both in transfer fee and salary, and the guys in the 8-12k salary range who might have just enough skill at the big man positions to fit into my lineup. Beyond that, though, I'd much rather carry about 80-90k/week in salary and put a lot of money into the arena now, rather than 150k+ in salary, the transfer fees to bring those guys in.