I am a hoopadummy and only really followed the NBA in high school because of Michael Jordan and NBA Jam and so forth.
Brad Lohaus from the corner. Worked almost every time and I loved killing my friends with Lohaus and Blue Edwards.
On TE, I always cycled between the Sonics and Magic (when you got the unlocked players, you could switch between Penny, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott and just rain down threes the entire game).
Edit: I just looked at that list. Beating every team in the game enabled you to play with Bill Curley, Eric Mobley and Yinka Dare.
But even the unlocked Sonics team didn't include my favorite player, Nate McMillan: