Introducing the New Salt City Hoops Writing Team

Upon introducing Salt City Hoops 2.0 last week, we promised that a renaissance was underway. Today, we’d like to announce the most important part of that renaissance: additions to our writing team.

When we asked for applications for talented people within Jazz world; we were overwhelmed with the response. In all, we had over 40 applications from people interested in contributing, and ended up selecting fewer than 10 to join Salt City Hoops. This means that this group is the cream of the crop.

We will have two tiers of staff: weekly writers, who are assigned a weekly post, and a team of irregular contributors, who will add in their two cents whenever appropriate. Combined together, you can expect daily content from Salt City Hoops from this point forward. We plan on being a daily destination for Jazz content consumers.

Without further ado, let me introduce the Salt City Hoops dream team:

Dan Clayton is the Spanish language radio voice of the Utah Jazz on 1600 AM. He has previously written for Marca, Spain’s leading sports daily, as well as various Latino publications around the valley. Dan is stellar at interacting with fans in both English and Spanish on Twitter and around the internet, and we are excited to have him producing weekly content for Salt City Hoops. You can expect his content here on Thursdays, and can find him the rest of the week at @Jazz1600AM.

David J Smith writes instant recaps for the Deseret News during the season, and other articles on UtahJazz360 and WeAreUtahJazz.com. Well respected in Jazz circles, David’s writing will appear on Salt City Hoops on Wednesdays. You can find him on Twitter at @DavidJSmith1232.

Denim Millward, before SCH, wrote for Bleacher Report about the Jazz and the NBA. Despite this, he is actually a good writer, and we promise we will eschew the slideshow format on this site. He also contributes to The Color Commentator Magazine, and strangely, likes wrestling. He will write every Tuesday for SCH, and you can find him on Twitter at @DenimMillward.

Laura Thompson is a long time Jazz fan writing from California. She graduated from BYU in 2008, and has worked in marketing, writing, and proofreading positions ever since. She’s been a radio guest on sports radio, and the Jazz writing she showed off in the application process was very impressive. She’ll be posting on Saturdays.

Scott Stevens, another Californian Jazz fan, works as an advertising copywriter in Laker land, an experience he wrote about on his blog here. He was selected as one of the “Jazz Rowdies” during that short campaign, and once appeared on the Jumbotron 11 times in 2 playoff games. He’s inordinately proud of these achievements. You can expect his writing on Fridays.

You can also expect articles from me once or twice a week. Now, introducing our team of contributors:

Tracy Weissenberg is a writer for SLAM magazine, operating the “Basketballista” blog on slamonline.com, as well as working as an on-air reporter for SLAM TV. She also works for Turner Sports, working in production for various NBA television programs. She’ll be contributing articles about the Jazz and the rest of the NBA for Salt City Hoops. You can find her on Twitter at @Basketballista.

Clint Johnson, known as one of the best participants in the SLCDunk community, will be a big asset for Salt City Hoops. For a living, Clint writes and teaches writing, and his analysis of the Jazz is usually spot-on.

Mario Alejandre works for the federal government by day and combines his two passions, the Utah Jazz and philosophy, at night. Mario plans on writing about the community, history, and sociological perspectives surrounding the Jazz.

Besides these three, you can expect continued contributions from the writers of Salt City Hoops that you already know and love: Spencer Hall, Evan Hall, Jackson Rudd, Jeff Lind, Geoff Beckstrom, and Matt Pacenza. 

Once again, we couldn’t be more excited about our staff going forward. Their work should really bring the high-quality Jazz writing and analysis you expect from Salt City Hoops.