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WNBA standings by conference

What you'll build: two conference tables from one standings call — record, win percentage, point differential, playoff seed, and a Pythagorean expectation computed from points for and against.

Sources used​

SourceHostCall
ESPN Site API (v2 standings)site.api.espn.com/apis/v2/sports/basketball/wnba/standings?season=2025sdv.wnba.espnWnbaStandings({ season: 2025 })

Offline fixture: test/fixtures/espn/standings_wnba_2025.json (captured 2026-10-06; 13 teams, two conferences).

The standings payload​

ESPN's standings come back as a tree: children[] (one per conference or division) each holding standings.entries[], and each entry holding a team object plus a stats[] list of { name, value, displayValue } records. The parser flattens that to one row per team with the group name carried along (group_name, group_abbreviation) and every stat promoted to its own column by name: wins, losses, win_percent, games_behind, points_for, points_against, differential, streak, playoff_seed, clincher, plus the record-string stats overall, home, road, vs_conf, last_ten_games.

Because the stats are keyed by name rather than position, the same parser serves every league — the NFL tutorial uses it for 32 teams with ties and division_record appearing automatically.

Numbers, not strings​

Unlike the scoreboard's scores, standings stats arrive as numbers (value), so wins, points_for and win_percent need no casting. The script uses that directly in the Pythagorean formula with the basketball exponent 13.91 (Morey's number), which is a quick way to see which records are "earned": a team whose pyth sits well above its win_pct has been unlucky in close games.

streak is signed (positive = winning streak), and differential is per game while point_differential is the season total.

The script​

examples/03_wnba_standings.mjs
// 03 — WNBA standings → conference tables.
//
// Shows: the ESPN `standings` endpoint parsed to one row per team, grouped by
// conference, plus a derived Pythagorean-expectation column. The same call works
// on every league namespace (sdv.nba / sdv.nfl / sdv.nhl / … .espn<Lg>Standings).
//
// Sources: ESPN Site API v2 — site.api.espn.com/apis/v2/sports/basketball/wnba/standings?season=2025
// Offline fixture: test/fixtures/espn/standings_wnba_2025.json (captured 2026-10-06).

import sdv from 'sportsdataverse';
import { setup } from './_offline.mjs';
import { printTable, round } from './_util.mjs';

setup();

const rows = await sdv.wnba.espnWnbaStandings({ season: 2025, parsed: true });
console.log(`${rows.length} teams across ${new Set(rows.map((r) => r.group_name)).size} groups`);

const table = rows.map((r) => {
  const pf = r.points_for;
  const pa = r.points_against;
  return {
    conf: r.group_abbreviation,
    team: r.team_abbreviation,
    w: r.wins,
    l: r.losses,
    win_pct: round(r.win_percent, 3),
    diff: round(r.differential, 1),
    pyth: round(pf ** 13.91 / (pf ** 13.91 + pa ** 13.91), 3), // basketball exponent
    streak: r.streak,
    seed: r.playoff_seed,
  };
});

for (const conf of ['E', 'W']) {
  printTable(
    table.filter((t) => t.conf === conf).sort((a, b) => b.win_pct - a.win_pct),
    ['team', 'w', 'l', 'win_pct', 'diff', 'pyth', 'streak', 'seed'],
    8,
    `${conf === 'E' ? 'Eastern' : 'Western'} Conference`
  );
}

Opens a Node sandbox in a new tab with this script as index.mjs; runs live (no API key for ESPN).

Output​

Output of node examples/03_wnba_standings.mjs (offline, against the committed fixtures):

13 teams across 2 groups

## Eastern Conference
| team | w  | l  | win_pct | diff  | pyth  | streak | seed |
| ---- | -- | -- | ------- | ----- | ----- | ------ | ---- |
| ATL  | 30 | 14 | 0.682   | 7.6   | 0.788 | 6      | 1    |
| NY   | 27 | 17 | 0.614   | 4.1   | 0.665 | 3      | 2    |
| IND  | 24 | 20 | 0.545   | 3.4   | 0.637 | 3      | 3    |
| WSH  | 16 | 28 | 0.364   | -4.5  | 0.315 | -10    | 4    |
| CON  | 11 | 33 | 0.25    | -10.2 | 0.149 | -2     | 5    |
| CHI  | 10 | 34 | 0.227   | -10   | 0.15  | -4     | 6    |
(6 rows, all shown)

## Western Conference
| team | w  | l  | win_pct | diff | pyth  | streak | seed |
| ---- | -- | -- | ------- | ---- | ----- | ------ | ---- |
| MIN  | 34 | 10 | 0.773   | 9.4  | 0.833 | 1      | 1    |
| LV   | 30 | 14 | 0.682   | 2.9  | 0.621 | 16     | 2    |
| PHX  | 27 | 17 | 0.614   | 2.7  | 0.613 | -3     | 3    |
| SEA  | 23 | 21 | 0.523   | 2    | 0.587 | 1      | 4    |
| GS   | 23 | 21 | 0.523   | 1.4  | 0.562 | -3     | 5    |
| LA   | 21 | 23 | 0.477   | -2.6 | 0.398 | -1     | 6    |
| DAL  | 10 | 34 | 0.227   | -6.3 | 0.263 | 1      | 7    |
(7 rows, all shown)

Variations​

  • sdv.nba.espnNbaStandings, sdv.nhl.espnNhlStandings, sdv.mlb.espnMlbStandings and the college leagues all return the same shape; group names become divisions or conferences as the league defines them.
  • The season parameter selects the season; omit it for the current one.
  • For a non-ESPN view of the same table, sdv.wnba.wnba_stats_leaguestandingsv3 wraps stats.wnba.com (it needs the impersonating transport; see the reference page).

Next steps​