nba_api
An API client for NBA.com. nba_api makes the APIs behind NBA.com easy to call from Python and documents them extensively — 130+ stats.nba.com endpoints, the live game data feeds on cdn.nba.com, and bundled player and team reference data.
Installation
pip install nba_api
Requires Python 3.10+. Installs requests, numpy, and pandas.
Quick start
Find a player or team (no HTTP request)
Player and team reference data ships with the package, so lookups are instant and offline.
from nba_api.stats.static import players, teams
players.find_players_by_full_name("jokic")
# [{'id': 203999, 'full_name': 'Nikola Jokić', 'first_name': 'Nikola',
# 'last_name': 'Jokić', 'is_active': True}]
teams.find_team_by_abbreviation("bos")
# {'id': 1610612738, 'full_name': 'Boston Celtics', 'abbreviation': 'BOS', ...}
Searches take case-insensitive regular expressions, and player name searches ignore accents ("jokic" matches "Jokić").
Official stats (stats.nba.com)
from nba_api.stats.endpoints import playercareerstats
career = playercareerstats.PlayerCareerStats(player_id=203999) # sends the request
career.season_totals_regular_season.get_data_frame() # one data set as a pandas DataFrame
career.get_data_frames() # every data set, as a list of DataFrames
career.get_dict() # the full response as a dict
Every stats endpoint works the same way: constructing it sends the request, and each data set the endpoint returns is available as an attribute with get_data_frame(), get_dict(), and get_json(). See the endpoint reference for each endpoint's parameters and data sets.
Live game data (cdn.nba.com)
from nba_api.live.nba.endpoints import scoreboard
games = scoreboard.ScoreBoard() # today's games
games.score_board_date
games.games.get_dict()
Live endpoints: ScoreBoard, BoxScore(game_id), PlayByPlay(game_id), and Odds.
Request options
Every endpoint, stats or live, accepts the same request options:
career = playercareerstats.PlayerCareerStats(
player_id=203999,
timeout=60, # seconds; default 30
proxy="http://127.0.0.1:8080", # or a list of proxies to pick from at random
headers={"User-Agent": "..."}, # replaces the default headers entirely
get_request=False, # build the request without sending it
)
career.get_request() # send it later
stats.nba.com throttles rapid requests and does not respond to some cloud-hosting IP ranges. If requests hang or time out, add a delay between calls, increase timeout, or route through a proxy. More detail is in the stats examples.
Documentation
- Table of contents — start here
- Stats examples — request options, return formats, static data
- Jupyter notebooks — basic calls, finding games, play-by-play, live data
- Endpoint data structure — the methods every endpoint shares
- Parameters — valid values and defaults
- Changelog
Community
- Slack — join the workspace to get help, help others, share projects, and discuss the API.
- Stack Overflow — ask questions tagged
nba-api.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md to set up a development environment and open a pull request.
NBA.com does not announce new, changed, or removed endpoints. If you find one, or hit a bug, open an issue.
License and terms of use
nba_api is open source under the MIT License.
Data retrieved with this package comes from NBA.com and is subject to the NBA.com Terms of Use.
Release files for nba-api 1.11.6
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