NBA Supercoach | The Donovan Mitchell Seesaw

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

He drops a monster week. You tell your group chat he’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.

I’ve had a theory for a while: Mitchell can’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’s really different. He is. Welcome to the Mitchell Seesaw.

Up, down, up, down

SuperCoach NBA 2025-26 weekly scores (in-game Past Seasons data)

Look at that line. It doesn’t drift. It lurches.

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:

• 129 → 69
• 119 → 23
• 116 → 59
• 131 → 19
• 100 → 44
• 108 → 35

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

• 23 → 116
• 69 → 119
• 37 → 100
• 44 → 75

Here’s the whole seesaw in two numbers:

	That week	The week after
After his 10 big weeks	111.8	62.2
After his 6 bad weeks	41.8	87.5

After a big week, he gave back almost 50 points. After a bad one, he added almost 46. That’s not a slump and a recovery. That’s a pendulum.

Is he really worse than everyone else?

Every player swings. The question is whether Mitchell swings harder. So I built a seesaw score for 39 of last season’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.

	Mitchell	39-player average
Drop after a big week	61% of his weekly average	41%
Bounce after a bad week	56% of his weekly average	44%
Seesaw score	117%	85%
Rank	4th of 39
Big weeks backed up with another big week	1 of 10

Only Cade Cunningham, Josh Giddey and Jalen Duren swung harder, and none of them had as many big weeks as Mitchell’s ten. Ten big weeks, one back-up. You can set your watch by it.

So yes. The theory is right. If you own Mitchell, you’re not riding a player, you’re riding a seesaw.

Donovan Mitchell so far this season

21.9 PTS
5.4 AST
5.3 REB
1.1 STL
46.8% FG
39.1% 3PT

Thoughts? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/IKkpXCJv0V

— SleeperCavs (@SleeperCleCavs) November 3, 2026

What tips the seesaw

Three things push it, in this order.

1. The games disappear. In the week after a big week, Mitchell played 1.7 fewer games on average. That’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.

2. The shot gets a bit worse. 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’s there, and it piles onto the missing games.

3. It snaps back. 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.

Mitchell, 2025-26	SC per game	Missed shots per game
His 10 big weeks	28.0	10.8
The 7 weeks after	27.0	12.0
Season	27.6	11.0

It doesn’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.

How to ride the seesaw

Buy him on the way down. 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.

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

Don’t captain him off a big week. Unless next week’s games are locked in, the armband is a coin you’ve already flipped.

Count the games first. If Cleveland have a short week coming, or he’s carrying a knock, that’s where the crash lives. Check the schedule before you check the form.

This season is the test. 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’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’ll know the seesaw is in the man, not the fixture.

Either way, I’ll be watching. And I’ll be checking his game count before I go anywhere near the armband.