The season is more than halfway through, and one particular end-of-season award – the Most Improved Player of the Year – is shaping up to get handed to Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo.

The 2018 All-Star reserve has an excellent case to take home the honor. Along with being categorized with the league’s stars this past weekend, his season averages of 24.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 2.1 steals, 1.9 made threes per game on 48.4-percent shooting are all career-highs.

If you ask one Southwest Division executive, however, he’d tell you that Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie can make a run for Oladipo's money, via Michael Scotto of The Athletic:

“Spencer Dinwiddie could be the most improved player in the league.. I think Oladipo will win the award, but Dinwiddie basically got cut by two teams, went to the D-League and turned into a legitimate starter. I think that’s a credit to their player development and their culture.”

Similar to Oladipo, Dinwiddie is having a career year, and his current season averages for points, rebounds, assists, steals, and made threes per game are all the best of his career. He also leads the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (4.2) and is fresh-off winning the Skills Challenge event at the All-Star weekend.

spencer dinwiddie

What he's done is extra impressive once you know that he's a back-up who only got more playing time because Jeremy Lin is out for the season and D'Angelo Russell missed 31 games.

The Nets are only 19-40 on the season, but they are looking good overall. They are a young team with a lot of energy and potential. It will be intriguing to see how the team would be if a three-guard attack of Dinwiddie, Russell, and Lin is in play, as each present a different challenge to the opposition.