Donovan Mitchell has beef with Call of Duty: ‘Put me in the trash lobbies’

Mitchell has seemingly made good use of his NBA Cup “bye week.”

Donovan Mitchell’s voice didn’t sound quite right after the Cleveland Cavaliers’ practice on Thursday afternoon. He apologized for clearing his throat after answering the first question and then offered up the explanation that he lost his voice during this mini break that the Cavs have been on.

Mitchell had to stop his response mid-sentence for a sip of water a few questions later.

“Sorry, I’ve been playing Call of Duty with these kids, screaming at them and stuff, that’s where the voice goes,” Mitchell said after the interruption. “I don’t know if you saw my tweet the other day. It’s been rough.”

Your enjoyment of Call of Duty is directly correlated to how well you do. Every video game is like that to a degree, but none more so than playing Call of Duty online. There’s truly nothing less fun than advancing out of a lobby you were good in and being placed into one where you’re among the worst players. Getting frustrated is just a part of that game.

“I genuinely try to get better, which makes me even more upset,” Mitchell said. “I watch film on my phone, on TikTok. I’m still terrible. As you can tell, I put a lot of effort into Call of Duty.”

Mitchell seems stuck in the endless loop of knowing what it was like to be good at the game, but not good enough to actually have fun when the competition level increases. That maddening cycle is what Activision Blizzard has somehow built a multi-billion dollar business on.

“I feel like Call of Duty looks at me and is like, you know, I play well and then it’s like, ‘Alright, the guys that do this for a living, go play with Donovan,’” Mitchell said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily fair. The guys are jumping and sliding, moving back and forth. I can’t really do all that, you know what I mean, so it’s tough.”

We’ve all been there. There’s nothing more humbling than watching yourself on the kill cam moving in slow motion compared with the guy who took you out.

“I know I’m not the only one that feels that way,” Mitchell said. “People on Twitter confirmed what I was feeling so I feel better.”

Anyone who’s played Call of Duty has been frustrated by it. That said, as a general rule of thumb, it’s never a good sign when you have to reach out to people on Twitter to cope with your problem. It’s even worse when you have to speak to the manager about it.

“So yeah, I mean, I reached out to Call of Duty,” Mitchell said, “like, ‘Hey, put me in the trash lobbies, that’s where I belong.’ We’ll see what happens.”

At least Mitchell has basketball to fall back on.