Positions

As I said before I'm coaching some 14-16 year olds who are on average beginners. Thanks to your previous advise we've learnt a few basics, my question is should I give them positions and then focus on making everyone good for his position? Or Train in general and then give positions based on how good they are? Because some of the players have positions in mind they want to play (shooting guard, point guard, center and all) but they don't have the skills.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to your question. In todays game, positions are blurring and the traditional PG, SG, SF, PF, Center are going away. Positions are often interchangeable at all levels.

This is completely a preference thing, but I don't really have positions in the traditional sense. We do usually assign numbers to players (1,2,3,4,5) but it's only to assign running lanes in transition offense and so players know what spots to go to for BLOB plays. In or motion offense, all the positions are interchangeable. So the assigned numbers are useless in our half court motion.