(Sorry about all of the side commentary before. It wasn't necessary or needed at all.)
As far as the topic is concerned, here's where I think the key lies though...
If we were building the team around Okafor as our best big man, then I would say "yes, put him at the position that suits him the best". If his speed (or lack thereof) makes him play the position of C than PF, then he would obviously play C. However, since Lopez is the better big man, we would play Lopez at the position that suits him better and then see where Okafor fits in. The better player dictates how the lineups are orchestrated, not one attribute about a lesser player.
If lineups were solely based upon the speed of players, then I can see your point. But things are much more complicated than that. Since the position of PF is a naturally more athletic position than C, you're going to have quicker and more athletic defenders on Lopez. In addition to that, Lopez would have to guard quicker and more athletic PFs as well. The height advantage he would have could very well be negated by the fact that he would be chasing guys like Amare, Dirk, Bosh, Rashard Lewis (since they play him at PF), KG, Brand, Boozer, Villanueva, Horford, Tyrus Thomas, Scola, D. West, Z. Randolph, L. Aldridge, Al Jefferson, Kevin Love, David Lee, Blake Griffin, etc. Obviously, I'm not saying that these guys are better than Lopez but what would kill him would be their agility/speed, ability to stretch the floor and draw Lopez away from the basket (which is not his forte at defending). Lopez would be so tired from trying to run around and defend Dirk in the post, key, and 3 point line that his energy on offense would deteriorate. We'd be left with slow, tired post moves and opponents sending late double teams to either take it away from him or block him.
On the other side, we would have Okafor at the center position. What we achieve in having his speed match that of the opponent's slowest player, we would lose in other categories. Most of the time, the opponent's C would be taller and longer. While Okafor might be able to keep with the other C, he'd also have to make sure that his athleticism would overcome the height/length difference.
To me it just seems that we'd killing our better big man by having him play the four due to a lesser player's speed.
IMO it's similar to when people argue against playing LeBron at PG. We look at him and say he's a better passer and faster than Mo Williams. A PG's role is to set up the play, pass, and get the ball up the court, therefore LBJ should be the PG right? Even though the difference between LBJ and MO is so great I could really see why people want him at PG, the fact is that defensively it would cause problems. Instead of guarding slower SF that he would dominate all of the time, you're immediately having him guard smaller, faster PGs. Sure, he may able to "defend" by chasing them down and blocking their shot off the backboard once or twice a game but that chase down block situation doesn't happen often enough. You know what does happen a lot though? The pick and roll game. LBJ would constantly be fighting off screens and switching off to guard Cs as PGs use the pick and roll against him. You'd be tiring him out for no reason. Plus, even if the pick and roll wasn't used, when have we actually seen stellar on-ball or man-to-man defense by LeBron in the half-court defense set that we should us that he can guard PGs one-on-one all of the time. (That's a completely different issue but I don't know how you get on All-Defense First Team when you don't really defend lol. At least we've seen Kobe hound opponents in man-to-man defense sets.) But back to the analogy, Mo Williams would then have to guard bigger, longer players and has the potential to get destroyed trying to keep up with the likes of Melo, Pierce, Artest, Granger, etc.
I hope I haven't lost you all with the analogy but I was just trying to show a similar case in which by using speed to create a potential mismatch on one end, you can lose a lot of things in other areas, which would be a greater detriment to the team.
Sorry for going off topic, Soup. I should've just wrote this the first time. And even though it's not a Nets related issue, I wish we could discuss that LBJ-all-star defense issue.
