A spokesperson from the NBA league office confirmed today that Aubrey McClendon, a part owner of the Seattle SuperSonics, was fined $250,000 by the league for comments he made in an Oklahoma City newspaper two weeks ago.

In that story that was published Aug. 12 by The Journal Record, a daily newspaper that focuses on business in Oklahoma City, McClendon stated: “But we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle. We hoped to come here. We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even, we’d be thrilled.”

McClendon’s comments were contrary to statements Sonics’ chairman Clay Bennett has consistently made since he bought the team over the year ago. Bennett has stated that keeping the team in Seattle remained the ownership group’s first priority.

Bennett and McClendon released prepared statements a day after McClendon’s comments stating their desire to keep the team in Seattle.

The league’s fining of McClendon comes on the heels of a renewed effort by local politicians to keep the team in Seattle.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has stated that he would like to talk to Bennett about building a new arena or remodeling KeyArena if the ownership group was willing to put in $100 million toward that effort.

And the Seattle City Council is in the preliminary stages of drafting an ordinance that would lock the Sonics ownership group into the KeyArena lease, which runs until 2010.

The ordinance, which the council would vote on at a Sept. 10th meeting at the earliest, essentially mirrors a initiative effort put forth by a Sonics fans group, and would eliminate any potential buyout of the KeyArena lease if council approved the measure.

Backers of the initiative, called “A Deal is a Deal,” had hoped to get the measure on the February ballot for Seattle city voters to approve.