Donovan Mitchell is definitely among the most impressive players to wear a Utah Jazz jersey. The only black mark on his legacy is that he never quite took the Jazz all that far. In fact, there have been multiple instances of him shrinking. Unfortunately, it appears not much has changed four years into his tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It's not like Mitchell is an all-around playoff dropper. He had some jaw-dropping playoff performances last year with the Cavaliers, but he can't consistently do that. In fact, he has come well short of what his team wants, no matter who he's up against. They saw this today in their Game 4 loss against the Toronto Raptors.
In what could have been the ugliest game of the 2026 NBA Playoffs, the Raptors tied their series with the Cavaliers. Mitchell was not alone in the Cavaliers' struggles, but someone like him being the team's best player makes it easier for everyone to notice when he's not showing up. He certainly didn't.
20 points isn't bad, but shooting six-for-24 is. Not to mention four turnovers and a plus/minus of minus-eight. Bad statlines aren't uncommon for stars like him, but doing this against the Toronto Raptors, a team with playoff virgins (or not too far off) is just a bad look.
He used to do this with the Jazz, particularly against those James Harden-led Houston Rockets teams in his earlier days. One would think he'd move past this, but Mitchell is still stuck, which has put the Cavaliers in legitimate jeopardy of getting bounced in the first round.
Hey, it's a good thing for the Jazz if that happens!
The Cavaliers have not indicated any progress since acquiring Mitchell four years ago. They will officially hit rock bottom if they get ousted in the first round, which is not only a bad look, but when knowing they were ousted in the second round last year when it looked like they had turned the corner, it really feels like it's all downhill from here.
Hey, that's pretty much how it felt during his last days in Utah, too! It felt like the Jazz had leveled up in 2021, then the Clippers bested them, and in 2022, things got even worse, and look what happened after that!
If history repeats itself, the Jazz win big time from it because they still have assets left over from the deal they made with Cleveland. The Cavaliers may very well win this series, but they haven't given any good indications that their fortunes will change after the last three years.
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