INDEPENDENT DEVELOPER REFERENCE

NBA game logs API for player statistics

Build an NBA player game log from retained ESPN box scores: season years, stat keys, cursor pagination and why you must sort rows yourself.

Editorial review: 2026-11-03 · Not a live coverage report

The request

Use /api/v1/stats/player-games. sport and season are required, and NBA seasons use the ending year: season=2027 is 2026-27 and season=2026 is 2025-26. Independent ESPN statistics cover NBA, NFL and NHL as limited retained game samples, not full seasons. As of 2026-11-03 those samples were captured after the games were played, so they do not show what was known at game time.

A page of completed NBA box score rows

curl --fail-with-body "https://draftkingsapi.com/api/v1/stats/player-games?sport=NBA&season=2027&completed=true&limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DRAFTKINGS_API_KEY"

Add athlete_id or team_id to narrow, event_id for one game, and from and to for a date range. Both take an ISO 8601 offset timestamp or YYYY-MM-DD.

Find an athlete ID

IDs are numeric ESPN IDs of 1 to 20 digits. There is no name search. List a page of rows, read data.name and data.athlete_id, then filter by that ID. Filter by team_id first to keep the search small.

List athletes in a page of rows

python3 player-game-log.py --sport NBA --season 2027 --max-pages 1

Read the response

NBA player rows use the category boxscore. Each entry of stats has key, label, display, numeric and scope. Compound values such as fieldGoalsMade-fieldGoalsAttempted display as 1-3 with null numeric, so split the display string yourself if you need the parts.

Stats seen in NBA boxscore rows.
key	label	numeric
`minutes`	MIN	Number
`points`	PTS	Number
`rebounds`	REB	Number
`assists`	AST	Number
`steals`, `blocks`, `turnovers`	STL, BLK, TO	Number
`fieldGoalsMade-fieldGoalsAttempted`	FG	Null, display only
`threePointFieldGoalsMade-threePointFieldGoalsAttempted`	3PT	Null, display only
`plusMinus`	+/-	Number

Sort the rows yourself

Pages are ordered by a cursor built from event, athlete and category, not by date. Each row carries its game under game, so sort on game.starts_at after you collect the pages. Reading a player's last five games needs the sort first.

Most recent first

rows.sort(key=lambda r: r["game"]["starts_at"], reverse=True)
for row in rows[:5]:
    values = {s["key"]: s["numeric"] for s in row["data"]["stats"]}
    print(row["game"]["starts_at"][:10], values.get("minutes"), values.get("points"))

Follow the cursor

Statistics use cursor pagination. limit is 1 to 200, default 50. Pass pagination.next as after and stop when has_more is false. offset and format=csv are rejected. An empty matching page returns available: false. Pagination is not a frozen export.

Handle preseason and inactive players

Season 2027 can include games from before the regular season. game.season_type carries the source value, and we saw 2 on a regular-season game. Confirm the values in your rows before you mix game types. Also check did_not_play, because a player who did not play has no meaningful stat line.

What a game log cannot tell you

The evidence clock on each game shows when the capture happened, not what was known at tip-off. Original observations can be later than the game. These rows are not a sportsbook prop archive, not an as-of correction history and not grading. Read evidence and the coverage report before citing a sample.

Try it

Replace ID with an athlete ID returned by the listing step.

python3 player-game-log.py --sport NBA --season 2027 --athlete-id ID --stat points --max-pages 3

Endpoint docs

Working assets

Check the recorded data

Questions

How many NBA games are stored?

Limited samples, not full seasons. Read the coverage report and each response's available and coverage fields. A valid season filter does not promise that every game is stored.

What season value is the 2026-27 NBA season?

Use season=2027. NBA and NHL use the ending year. NFL uses the starting year.

Why are game log rows out of date order?

Pages follow a stable cursor based on event, athlete and category rather than a date. Collect the pages you need, then sort on game.starts_at.

Can I export a game log as CSV?

The statistics endpoints are JSON only and reject format=csv. Convert the rows on your side.

Related resources

NBA points props data for developers

Pair NBA Points rows from Pick6 with ESPN player points from the statistics API, and see where the join and the history stop.

Build a baseline NBA points prop model

Build a chronological NBA points baseline from recorded box scores, score it on later games and compare with Pick6 targets you recorded yourself.

Build a prop model baseline in Python

A walkthrough of a standard-library Python baseline: cursor pagination, numeric stat parsing, a SQLite cache and MAE on a later held-out window.

DraftKings API pagination: offset, after and cursors

Three pagination styles with working loops: offset lists, the Pick6 next_after sequence and statistics cursors, plus their limits.

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