NBA Supercoach | The Donovan Mitchell Seesaw


<p>Every SuperCoach has a player who breaks their heart on a schedule. Mine is Donovan Mitchell.</p>



<p>He drops a monster week. You tell your group chat he&#8217;s back. You think about the armband. Then the next week he hands you a number so small you check whether he played at all. Then he does it again. And again.</p>



<p>I&#8217;ve had a theory for a while: Mitchell can&#8217;t string two good weeks together. So I went back through every week of his 2025-26 season, and through 39 other premiums and midpricers to see if he&#8217;s really different. He is. Welcome to the Mitchell Seesaw.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Up, down, up, down</strong></h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="521" src="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-1024x521.png" alt="" class="wp-image-2406993" style="width:894px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-1024x521.png 1024w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-300x153.png 300w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-768x391.png 768w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-640x326.png 640w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1-1200x611.png 1200w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/image-1.png 1344w" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 98vw, (max-width: 1199px) 64vw, 770px" /></figure>



<p><em>SuperCoach NBA 2025-26 weekly scores (in-game Past Seasons data)</em></p>



<p>Look at that line. It doesn&#8217;t drift. It lurches.</p>



<p>Mitchell had ten big weeks last season, 94 or more, at least 15% above his average. He backed one up exactly once: 116 in Week 9, then 116 again in Week 10. Every other time, the floor fell out:</p>



<ul>
<li><strong>129 → 69</strong></li>



<li><strong>119 → 23</strong></li>



<li><strong>116 → 59</strong></li>



<li><strong>131 → 19</strong></li>



<li><strong>100 → 44</strong></li>



<li><strong>108 → 35</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>And it works in reverse. When Mitchell had a stinker, he came roaring back:</p>



<ul>
<li><strong>23 → 116</strong></li>



<li><strong>69 → 119</strong></li>



<li><strong>37 → 100</strong></li>



<li><strong>44 → 75</strong></li>
</ul>



<p>Here&#8217;s the whole seesaw in two numbers:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th>That week</th><th>The week after</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>After his 10 big weeks</td><td><strong>111.8</strong></td><td><strong>62.2</strong></td></tr><tr><td>After his 6 bad weeks</td><td><strong>41.8</strong></td><td><strong>87.5</strong></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p>After a big week, he gave back almost 50 points. After a bad one, he added almost 46. That&#8217;s not a slump and a recovery. That&#8217;s a pendulum.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Is he really worse than everyone else?</strong></h2>



<p>Every player swings. The question is whether Mitchell swings harder. So I built a seesaw score for 39 of last season&#8217;s premiums and midpricers: how much a player gives back after a big week, plus how much he gains after a bad one, both as a share of his own weekly average.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Mitchell</th><th>39-player average</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Drop after a big week</td><td><strong>61%</strong> of his weekly average</td><td>41%</td></tr><tr><td>Bounce after a bad week</td><td><strong>56%</strong> of his weekly average</td><td>44%</td></tr><tr><td>Seesaw score</td><td><strong>117%</strong></td><td>85%</td></tr><tr><td>Rank</td><td><strong>4th of 39</strong></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Big weeks backed up with another big week</td><td><strong>1 of 10</strong></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p>Only Cade Cunningham, Josh Giddey and Jalen Duren swung harder, and none of them had as many big weeks as Mitchell&#8217;s ten. Ten big weeks, one back-up. You can set your watch by it.</p>



<p>So yes. The theory is right. If you own Mitchell, you&#8217;re not riding a player, you&#8217;re riding a seesaw.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-x wp-block-embed-x"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Donovan Mitchell so far this season<br><br>21.9 PTS<br>5.4 AST<br>5.3 REB<br>1.1 STL<br>46.8% FG<br>39.1% 3PT<br><br>Thoughts? 🤔 <a href="https://t.co/IKkpXCJv0V">pic.twitter.com/IKkpXCJv0V</a></p>&mdash; SleeperCavs (@SleeperCleCavs) <a href="https://x.com/SleeperCleCavs/status/2117733009155850512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 3, 2026</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>What tips the seesaw</strong></h2>



<p>Three things push it, in this order.</p>



<p><strong>1. The games disappear.</strong> In the week after a big week, Mitchell played 1.7 fewer games on average. That&#8217;s the biggest drop of anyone I checked, and more than double the average of 0.8. Six of his seven post-big-week crashes were one- or two-game weeks. Week 16 was a five-game, 131-point monster. Weeks 17 and 18? One game each.</p>



<p><strong>2. The shot gets a bit worse.</strong> In the weeks after a big one, he scored the same points but missed about one extra shot a game, which shaved roughly a SuperCoach point off his per-game rate. Small, but it&#8217;s there, and it piles onto the missing games.</p>



<p><strong>3. It snaps back.</strong> The same thing works in reverse. The short weeks are followed by full weeks, and the full weeks are where his 116s and 119s live.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><thead><tr><th>Mitchell, 2025-26</th><th>SC per game</th><th>Missed shots per game</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>His 10 big weeks</td><td>28.0</td><td>10.8</td></tr><tr><td>The 7 weeks after</td><td>27.0</td><td>12.0</td></tr><tr><td>Season</td><td>27.6</td><td>11.0</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p>It doesn&#8217;t really matter to your score which one is doing the damage. The seesaw is real either way. What matters is that you can see it coming.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>How to ride the seesaw</strong></h2>



<p><strong>Buy him on the way down.</strong> The best time to bring Mitchell in is after a stinker. Last season his bad weeks were followed by an average jump of 46 points, and his price will have dipped too. You get the cheap seat and the bounce.</p>



<p><strong>Never chase the spike.</strong> Trading him in after a 120-point week is buying at the top of the seesaw. Last season, that next week averaged 62.</p>



<p><strong>Don&#8217;t captain him off a big week.</strong> Unless next week&#8217;s games are locked in, the armband is a coin you&#8217;ve already flipped.</p>



<p><strong>Count the games first.</strong> If Cleveland have a short week coming, or he&#8217;s carrying a knock, that&#8217;s where the crash lives. Check the schedule before you check the form.</p>



<p><strong>This season is the test.</strong> He opened with 58 from two games, then 88 from four. Cleveland now has four games in Week 3 and four more in Week 4, the steadiest run he&#8217;s had. If the seesaw is mostly games, this is his best shot at finally backing up a good week. If he still crashes with a full schedule, you&#8217;ll know the seesaw is in the man, not the fixture.</p>



<p>Either way, I&#8217;ll be watching. And I&#8217;ll be checking his game count before I go anywhere near the armband.</p>


NBA Supercoach | The Donovan Mitchell Seesaw

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