Kahleah Copper and Arike Ogunbowale are on a historic trajectory

Scoring has been down slightly to start this WNBA season, but don't tell that to Arike Ogunbowale or Kahleah Copper.

On average, the league is scoring 101.0 points per 100 possessions to start this season, down from 104.2 last year. But Ogunbowale, who leads the league in scoring, and Kahleah Copper, who is currently ranked third, have both increased their scoring averages by huge margins.

Ogunbowale is currently scoring 26.6 points per game, up from a previous career-high of 22.8. She's been shouldering an enormous offensive load for the Dallas Wings who are without Satou Sabally and Natasha Howard. Copper catapulted herself into the MVP race with a hot first week but she's still averaging 22.5 points per game, up from 18.7 during her breakout season last year. Copper has been the primary offensive engine for a Phoenix Mercury team looking to stay competitive without Brittney Griner and a greatly diminished Diana Taurasi.

Arike Ogunbowale and Kahleah Copper are in a rare club with their usage

The scoring numbers are impressive but where Copper and Ogunbowale are on a historic trajectory is with regards to their usage. Both players are on track to finish this year with a usage rate over 30 percent, something just 21 players in WNBA history have ever accomplished before.

Ogunbowale has already done this twice before but her current usage rate (33.1) is the highest of her career and would be the sixth highest all-time. It would also make her just the fourth player in WNBA history with three or more seasons with a usage rate over 30 percent, joining Angel McCoughtry, Betty Lennox and Tina Charles. Copper's usage rate (33.6) would be the fourth-highest all-time and the highest ever by someone not named Angel McCoughtry.

The heliocentric offense feels very familiar but both Ogunbowale and Copper are somewhat anachronistic in the degree to which they're dominating the ball for their teams. Twenty-one players have collectively finished 37 WNBA seaons with a usage rate over 30 but it's been done just six times in the past five years. Of those 37 seasons, 27 came by players who also had an assist rate of 15.0 percent or higher, which is true this year for both Copper and Ogunbowale.

But perhaps the most impressive data point here belongs to Copper. She's currently shooting 42.8 percent from the field, 39.4 percent from beyond the arc and 80.4 percent from the free throw line, for a true shooting percentage of 55.0. That would be tied for the sixth-highest true shooting percentage ever by a player with a usage rate over 30 and Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore and Chennedy Carter are the only non-bigs who have been this efficient with this large a scoring load.

Obviously, we still have a lot of basketball left to play this season and there's a good chance the numbers could come down for both Ogunbowale and Copper, as the toll of a regular season remounts and as some teammates return from injury. But right now, they're working on writing themselves into the record books for high-volume — and in the case of Copper, high-efficiency — scoring.