The New Republic published a 3,300 word hit-piece on what they say are questionable methods of Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarwoski, criticizing him for mixing reporting and opinion writing, cozy relationships with sources, including trading scoops for fawning puff pieces, and his "jihad" against rival ESPN.

But the story, full of a wide variety of accusations with various forms of supporting evidence, uses the Detroit Pistons and former president Joe Dumars as an example used to indict Woj. Among other things, the story reveals that Dumars was fined $500,000 by the NBA for leaking confidential league memos to Wojnarowski.

In 2010, the NBA fined Dumars $500,000 for leaking multiple confidential league memos to Wojnarowski, according to multiple sources. This matches the third largest publicly known fine the league has ever handed down. The NBA decided that too many memos were making it into the media, so they conducted a sting operation over several months. They would change a few words or numbers in different team's copies of otherwise identical memos, so that when the memos leaked they could spot the small differences and trace them back to the leaker. This approach caught Dumars red-handed, as well as an executive from another team who was fined $12,500 for leaking to a draft-focused website. Joe Dumars, the Detroit Pistons, and the NBA all declined to comment on the fine.

Wow.

There had also been hints and innuendo that Dumars and former Pistons CEO Tom Wilson were pretty generous speaking with and leaking information to the media, especially the national media if memory serves, but this is the first I've ever heard about a half-million dollar fine.

Regarding the rest of the reporting in the piece centered around Wojnarowski's methods, personality and the like, I'll leave that for others to decide. It's certainly a must-read if you care about one of the biggest names in NBA writing circles.

H/T to Ron MarsHall who had it first in comments.