Little attention has been paid to the gaming characteristics of basketball, despite the importance of this issue. The present study attempted to address these characteristics as “the special characteristics of basketball that distinguish it from other sports,” and examined fundamental aspects related to this essential issue. In order to gain a different insight into the special characteristics from those that have been adopted previously, we paid special attention to the form of the sport, as evidenced from the way in which is it portrayed in the media. We also studied unique aspects of basketball through analysis beginning with the most primitive and simplest differences in form compared with other kinds of sport. We concluded that the fundamental special characteristic of basketball is that shooting involves “throwing a ball into a goal installed in a horizontal position over the floor above head height.” This constitutes the basic condition for its establishment as a sport, and is the factor that makes basketball distinctly different from other ball games. On the basis of this concept, the gaming characteristics of basketball were redefined, thus: “Basketball is a game in which individuals, groups, or teams compete for points while blocking other parties on the same court, involving actions such as throwing the ball into a goal fixed in a horizontal position over the floor and above head height as the focal point.”