The first step for any player looking to shed the “bust” label (let’s ignore for now the fact that calling a first-year player a bust is foolish, I prefer the term “disappointment”) is to start putting up stats. They don’t have to efficient stats, they don’t have to be stats that help teams win games, they just have to be bigger numbers. Numbers don’t lie, and when you get to a certain threshold in points, it’s hard to call you a bust whatever your actual impact is.
Kris Dunn is on his way to doing that first step. 11 points a game is not super amazing or anything, but it’s a lot more than the 4 he put up last season. There are lots of okay players scoring those kind of points. Is Dunn one of those okay players? Sure. No reason he shouldn’t be.
And last time I checked, “okay” is not equivalent to “bust”. Except when the player in question is a top five pick so… uh… yeah. The jury’s still out on this one I guess.