The new Clips Nation roster

When I put a "Help Wanted" post up on Clips Nation, I really didn't know what to expect. As you know, this blog has been much more than a hobby for me for a very long time now -- in fact, this will be my tenth season blogging about the Los Angeles Clippers, and blog years are even worse than dog years. It was tough for me to delegate some of the responsibility to long time readers like Lucas Hann and John Raffo -- it's that much tougher to ask for help from relative strangers.

So I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect the response I got. I had almost 50 emails of interested parties in the first day. All told, between email and comments on the blog, about a hundred people put their hands up and volunteered to help out.

If you're one of those people, thank you very much for your interest. Having such a great response put me in a very favorable position of being able to be very, very choosy with additions to the contributor roster. I've tried to email everyone who contacted me, but a few may have fallen through the cracks. If you did not get a direct response from me, I do apologize. Please believe me when I say I appreciate your interest and your passion, but I'm adding as many people as I feel I can manage at this time (probably too many, but we'll see) and the competition for these spots was fierce.

I said up front that existing members of the blog would get preference, and that is indeed the case. Of about a dozen new contributors being added to the writing staff, all but three were existing members. Clips Nation is first and foremost a community, and it's much easier to work with people you already know.

Without further ado, meet the new contributor staff at Clips Nation:

Johnny Stark -- Until recently, he was citizen Schmidtty McFunStuff -- I didn't exactly force him to change his name to write for the front page, but I did hint a bit. His first feature, If each Clipper were a neighborhood in LA dropped last week. Johnny will be working on recaps and general interest pieces.

Larson Ishii -- Likewise a new handle for an existing member, Larson was citizen Ender_ in a previous life (or more accurately previously in this life). Larson will be helping in lots of ways, with recaps and the Daily Clipper and as our resident salary cap and CBA expert (he's studying Sports Law at Harvard, so, yeah.) His first piece on the ways in which the NBA's new TV deal will impact the cap demonstrates his chops nicely.

Matt Orr -- Yet another new handle (yes, I prefer real names when possible for the editorial staff), Matt previously wrote as thetragedyofquintonross and contributed a couple of very popular FanPosts to the site. Matt will be giving his somewhat quirky take on issues surrounding the team.

OhMeOhMy -- He hasn't changed his handle -- yet -- but long time Citizen OhMeOhMy will be joining the contributor staff nonetheless. In his day job he focuses on pop culture, and his role on Clips Nation will be to relate his beloved Clippers to popular culture around us whenever possible in addition to writing recaps and helping out on the social media side.

Thomas Wood -- The first of our "outsiders", Thomas was not an active commenter of Clips Nation previously, but claims to have been a long time lurker. He's definitely a huge Clippers fan, and you're going to love his writing -- at least I do. You get your first chance today.

Jul Jessup -- I'm incredibly happy to have a couple of female voices joining our previously very male-centric universe. The first is Jul Jessup, an incredibly enthusiastic Clippers fan who also happens to be a trained journalist who for some reason wants to be a part of the Clips Nation team. We're thrilled to have her.

ClipsDanielle (not her real name) Is our second non-dude writer, and she's going to be writing about sewing and housework. Not really. She is going to help us cover some of the off-the-court stuff that we sometimes ignore at Clips Nation. Yes, we're basketball-focused and will continue to be, but people also want to talk about the player's social lives, and their shoes and their clothes.

boltsfan21 -- That's right, Clips Nation's most lovable curmudgeon has agreed to write for the front page from time to time. He's promised to be less belligerent and not let this all go to his head -- but then again, he wouldn't be "bolts" if he weren't pissing someone off.

MortytheGreat -- I haven't made him chance his handle yet. Maybe I will yet. Citizen Morty has been around awhile, and he's going to be helping out with the Daily Clipper about once a week.

UC.Clipper -- Another member of the Daily Clipper team, citizen UC.Clipper has been a valued member of the Clips Nation community for a long time.

iMetriq -- Citizen iMetriq has been very active on Clips Nation since joining in February, and he too has agreed to join the Daily Clipper team.

In addition to the folks mentioned above (and there may be a couple of additional announcements to come), there will also be some familiar names taking on moderator roles in the comment threads. I'll make a separate announcement about that later as the team is still taking shape, but be aware that we are also adding a much more robust moderation team. We've never had much of an issue with moderation -- and this team will make sure we don't.

Lastly, I want to mention that all of the above contributors are in addition to some familiar names.

Mark Travis -- Mark joined the team late last season and will continue as a contributor this season. So if the Clippers have another playoff series in Oklahoma City, we will once again have a blogger on site.

Adithya -- the erstwhile Dave King on the site, Adithya wrote a couple of recaps last season and will be taking on a larger role going forward. He is on the Daily Clipper team in addition to writing features and recaps, and his first DC today was terrific.

Shap -- Although his schedule doesn't allow him to write as much as we'd like, Citizen Shap has always done terrific work, and we're hoping he finds more and more time for features on Clips Nation.

FlyByKnight -- A most familiar citizen, he's long been a draft prospect expert for the site, and he has been writing recaps since last season. He'll continue in those roles and hopefully expand some as well.

Jorge Barake -- Jorge (formerly citizen lovinglosangeles) is heading up the social media team, and will be working with people like Jul Jessup, Johnny Stark and citizen OhMeOhMy to help us define and implement a social strategy at Clips Nation.

Lawler's Law -- Lawler's Law has long been the main man behind the Daily Clipper, and he is once again leading that charge, this time with a bit more help.

There are lots of other familiar people of course. Lucas and Raffo and Citizen Zhiv and Erik O and others will be around, some more than others. Zhiv actually deigned to write a bit just today in fact. I've almost certainly forgotten someone very obvious, and I'm sure I'll hear about it in the comments, but for now, let's all welcome the new roster of contributors at Clips Nation.