Solid post. I want to put in a few more quick and easy ones before bed.
1) Rebounding- Such as in real life. If you dominate the boards then you dominate the game. I've seen teams with bad defense make up for it through AMAZING rebounding. While I personally prefer defense (less shots you have to rebound) I'd still recommend new teams to go for high rebounding. It gets your team as a collective better faster as you train individuals or small groups to be key players. when I started out I worked my way up to strong rebounding for that very reason.
2) PR Manager (and other staff)- While most go for an advanced trainer and the like...the PR manager is perhaps the most misunderstood of the bunch. This guy can turn your team into the green zone (turn a profit) almost literally on his own. With the base level PR manager I found that sales increase at less than a thousand per week. Just one level up and it increases to almost two thousand (considereing moderate success). I cannot emphasize enough how important money is in this game. which leads me to....
3) Arena- You MUST, I repeat, MUST keep an eye on ticket sales. If you don't increase your arena once you start selling around 85% of your tickets on a consistant basis, then you're missing out on quite a bit of income. I choose 85% as I've found that it generally hits that level on the way up. If you're losing ticket sales it's more likely that it will drop quickly to the 70's or 60% level. With the arena starting at such a low level it takes a long time (and a lot of cash) to build it up. For new users I'd recommend 500k be spent of the first upgrade with a focus on the first two sections.
4. Arena ticket costs- Unless you're a complete juggernaut winning every game it's pretty simple to set ticket prices. Perhaps 5-10% more than the minimal should keep your fans happy and your bleachers full.
My current prices are $10 bleachers; $25 lower tier; $125 court side and $1000 Luxury boxes.
And the last for tonight is...
5) Training- I really think this should have a long section devoted to it..which there but just for those of you here....I'd tell you to stay away from team training...it's highly inffectual and doesn't give enough gain in a timely manner. The only reason I'd ever set it to such a state was if I wasn't going to log on for long periods of time to set my roster . Then there would be at least some gain. If you really need a widespread improvement then train 2 positions (Guards, wings, PF/C etc..) at a time, for a total of 4-6 people trained.