Better in terms of salaries or better in terms of skills? I had the cheapest team of all time, primaries were low low low but my center was 4th in the league in assists. All the bigs could pass and handle, most of the guards could defend or score inside. Those skills come free on their salaries but make them much better players. The area that I lacked was rebounds on my guards. The other thing was back then, I am assuming this is a positive, I did a lot (too much?) team training. The team had great stamina and free throws. Not 100% that is a positive. So everyone (alomst there was one big exception who had atrocious-pitiful FTs) had great stamina and free throws which also doesn't show up on the balance books.
Finally, again not 100% sure this is a positive, back then I always did two position training so by the time the playoffs came around I had five guys who were performing at a much higher level than their salaries suggested.
But look at this for the printed salaries:
PG Vallo $5008
SG Oliver $6217
SF Mo $5596
PF Czeslaw $9218
C David G D L S $10753
Ok maybe the salaries are a little misleading as they jumped a lot the next day for example Sunday Finals game three Oliver was salary $6217 and before the next game he was $11,000 but still these days a team like that would get you relegated. Hilarious!
Want to see something more depressing? Go look at some of the ABBL vote winners from the early days and the starters in championship days. Ignore guys over 33-34 but you will still find a lot of guys of around $10,000 salary were ABBL stars.