Simple_Html_Dom parser not working inside function - php

Question

I'm trying to use Simple_Html_Dom parser to parse a web page for NBA statistics. I'm going to have a lot of different urls, but parsing the same data, so I figured I would create a function. Outside of the function, this parser works great, however as soon as I place the parsing inside the function, I receive a connection error. Just wondering, if anyone knows why I can't run the file_get_html inside the function. Here is the code below. Please help!
include('simple_html_dom.php');
$nbaPlayers = 'playerstats/15/1/eff/1-2';
function nbaStats($url){
$html = 'http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/';
$getHtml = $html . $url;
$a = file_get_html("$getHtml");
foreach($a->find('.statscontent tbody tr') as $tr){
$nbaStatLine = $tr->find('td');
$nbaName = $nbaStatLine[1]->plaintext;
$nbaGamesPlayed = $nbaStatLine[2]->plaintext;
$nbaMinuesPlayed = $nbaStatLine[3]->plaintext;
$nbaTotalPoints = $nbaStatLine[4]->plaintext;
$nbaRebounds = $nbaStatLine[5]->plaintext;
$nbaAssists = $nbaStatLine[6]->plaintext;
$nbaSteals = $nbaStatLine[7]->plaintext;
$nbaBlocks = $nbaStatLine[8]->plaintext;
$nbaTurnovers = $nbaStatLine[9]->plaintext;
$nbaoRebounds = $nbaStatLine[11];
$nbadRebounds = $nbaStatLine[12];
$nbaFieldGoals = $nbaStatLine[13];
$nbaFieldGoals = explode("-", $nbaFieldGoals);
$nbaFieldGoalsMade = $nbaFieldGoals[0];
$nbaFieldGoalsAttempted = $nbaFieldGoals[1];
// Player Stat Line
$playerStats = $nbaName . ': gp - ' . $nbaGamesPlayed . ' mp - ' . $nbaMinutesPlayed . ' pts - ' . $nbaTotalPoints . ' rb - ' . $nbaRebounds . ' as - ' . $nbaAssists . ' s - ' . $nbaSteals . ' bl - ' . $nbaBlocks . ' to - ' . $nbaTurnovers;
echo $playerStats . '<br /><br />';
}
}
nbaStats($nbaPlayers);

Answer 1

When passing a variable to a function you don't need to wrap the variable in quotations. Quotations are used when passing text directly to a function or assigning text to a variable.
Change this:
$a = file_get_html("$getHtml");
To this:
$a = file_get_html($getHtml);