| Continent: | South America |
| Year: | 1938 |
| Host: | Peru |
| Dates: | 12-22 February |
| Teams: | 5 |
| Venues: | 1 |
| Cities: | 1 |
| Champions: | Peru |
| Title Number: | 1 |
| Prevseason: | 1937 |
| Nextseason: | 1939 |
The 1938 South American Basketball Championship was the 6th edition of this tournament. It was held in Lima, Peru and won by the host, Peru national basketball team. 5 teams competed, including Ecuador in their first appearance.
Each team played the other four teams once, for a total of four games played by each team and 10 overall in the tournament.
| width=20 | Rank | width=220 | Team | width=20 | Pts | width=20 | W | width=20 | L | width=20 | PF | width=20 | PA | width=20 | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peru | 8 | 4 | 0 | 203 | 167 | +36 | ||||||||
| 2 | Argentina | 7 | 3 | 1 | 218 | 180 | +38 | ||||||||
| 3 | Uruguay | 6 | 2 | 2 | 160 | 139 | +21 | ||||||||
| 4 | Brazil | 5 | 1 | 3 | 174 | 195 | -21 | ||||||||
| 5 | Ecuador | 4 | 0 | 4 | 132 | 206 | -74 |
| width=25% | width=25% | width=25% | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peru | 61 - 55 | Argentina | |||
| Peru | 42 - 36 | Uruguay | |||
| Peru | 50 - 47 | Brazil | |||
| Peru | 50 - 29 | Ecuador | |||
| Argentina | 46 - 39 | Uruguay | |||
| Argentina | 60 - 38 | Brazil | |||
| Argentina | 57 - 42 | Ecuador | |||
| Uruguay | 45 - 30 | Brazil | |||
| Uruguay | 40 - 21 | Ecuador | |||
| Brazil | 59 - 40 | Ecuador |