Node-red-contrib-nba NPM

node-red-contrib-nba

Access the NBA Stats API using Node-RED.

Overview

The goal of this project is to provide easy access to the robust, yet undocumented NBA Stats API using Node-RED, a visual, flow-based development tool. Whether you're looking to create an NBA database, get the latest scores and stats, peform data analysis, or build an interactive website, this tool will help you get the data you need without having to research all the endpoints of the NBA Stats API.

With the NBA and other Node-RED nodes, you can create charts like this ...

fg3m-dashboard

... with just a few lines of JavaScript:

fg3m-js-flow

... or no JavaScript at all:

fg3m-nojs-flow

Dependencies and references

This project uses the nba npm module to call the various endpoints of the NBA Stats API. Please refer to this module's GitHub for futher information regarding the API's stability and usability as well as blacklisted IP addresses.

Nodes

There are a total of 5 nba nodes. Two of the nodes require no ID:

database: get player and team ids.

league: get leaguewide data.

The other three require an ID:

player: get data in relation to a given player.

team: get data in relation to a given team.

game: get data in relation to a given game.

Database

This node has the following uses:

get all NBA players
get all NBA teams
get one NBA player by name
get one NBA player by id
get one NBA player by name
get one NBA team by name
get one NBA team by id
update the database

Each player or team object contains a unique id used by the NBA Stats API. These are required by the player and team nodes.

The first 7 functions do not make API calls. Instead, they search files of the nba npm module. The final function listed above makes an API call to update these files. They are also updated when the Node-RED application starts and imports the node-red-contrib-nba module.

Player

This node requires a player id. It will return the following information in relation to this player, based on its configuration:

the player's profile
the player's career stats
the player's shot chart
the player's season splits

Team

This node requires a team id. It will return the following information in relation to this team, based on its configuration:

the team's profile
the team's roster
the team's schedule
the team's season stats
the team's leaders
the team's shooting stats
the team's season splits
the team's lineups
the team's on/off details
the team's shot chart

League

This node does not require an id, as it provides data for the entire league. It will return the following data based on its configuration:

the scoreboard for a given game day
league leaders
league standings
game logs grouped by player or team
player tracking grouped by player or team
shooting stats grouped by player or team
hustle stats grouped by player or team
clutch stats grouped by player or team
lineups
schedule
playoffs bracket

Game

This node requires a game id. It will return the following information in relation to this game, based on its configuration:

the game's box score
the game's play-by-play
the game's shot chart
the game's preview article
the game's recap article
the game's lead tracker

The get a game id, use the league node to get a scoreboard for a given game day. The game id will be located in msg.payload.sports_content.games.gamei.id.

Using the nodes

Valid Parameters

The nodes dynamically load dropdown options from the nba.json file in the nba-client-template npm module. If you load inputs dynamically, please refer either to this file or the dropdown options. If you send an invalid parameter value, then you should receive an error from the NBA API explicitly saying what it accepts for the particular endpoint.

Dynamically loading inputs

Most of the node inputs can be dynamically loaded. There are two ways to do this.

Text fields

Text fields may be hardcoded or dynamically populated via mustache syntax relative to the incoming msg object. For example, if the player id is located in msg.payload.playerId, then you can fill {{payload.playerId}} in the id field.

A simple example is using the database node to get a team by name and then sending the response to a team node. Because the database node returns a team object in msg.payload with the team id in msg.payload.teamId, you can now fill in {{payload.teamId}} in the team id field of the team node.

database-to-team

Dropdown options

Dropdown fields may be selected from the menu or dynamically populated via the specified property of the incoming msg object. For example, if loading measure type dynamically, the dropdown menu designates msg.measure_type as the specified property. When using this option, the property must be set earlier in the flow.

dynamic-dropdown

dynamic-dropdown-function

dynamic-dropdown-team

Getting id's

Use the database node to get player and team id's.

Use the league node to get a scoreboard for a given game day. The game id will be located in msg.payload.sports_content.games.gamei.id.

The cleanedData field

Some responses from the NBA Stats API return result sets that map headers, an array of strings, to rowSet, an array of arrays.

In this case, the node-red-contrib-nba module adds a cleanedData field that combines these arrays into an array of objects that might be easier to work with.

Ex result set: obj.headers = [PTS, MIN, NAME]
               obj.rowSet = [[25, 37, "James Harden"], [40, 35, "Stephen Curry"]]

Ex cleanedData = [{PTS: 25, MIN: 37, NAME: "James Harden}, 
                  {PTS: 40, MIN: 35, NAME: "Stephen Curry}]