Cathy Engelbert was a good commissioner for someone who once ran an accounting firm. This is not a slight. No need to wait while the laugh track runs its course.The former CEO of Deloitte kept the WNBA afloat during a pandemic, secured a seismic media rights deal, charted a course for league expansion, and toasted a landmark collective bargaining agreement only months ago. She did the number stuff well.Now the league requires a leader who does everything spectacularly. When Engelbert announced her intention to retire Friday morning, it created an opportunity as massive as the apprehension that unavoidably comes with it. The WNBA cannot miss here. There can be no backslide on the business side as the league launches into its next 30 years, but there must be a formidable presence in the chair with a relentless ambition in every phase of the job.What does a visionary WNBA commissioner look like? Well, it’s kind of hard to say, because being a visionary means seeing things the rest of us don’t.But start with being present and accounted for much more than the last one was, and creating a connection with players who seem to crave it more than most professional athletes, and earning trust that makes the unavoidable hard decisions more digestible, and balling up both fists to take on the cynics and bad actors, all while continuing to make everyone involved more and more money as a world watches.And even that may not cover the entire punch list.The game has earned that type of leadership — a tone-setter instead of a caretaker.Imagine a proactive, authoritative voice confronting the wide and varied controversies the WNBA has dealt with this summer. Issuing the occasional milquetoast press statement? That’s trying to win a sword fight with a pool noodle. Imagine instead bringing some charismatic intellect to the scrap. Imagine wielding the freedom to rightfully call a clown a clown, and the capital that earns a leader with their constituents, not to mention the people buying tickets to actually watch basketball.Who's responsible for the WNBA's PR problem?It’s the sort of clout that would be useful in building a relationship with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who, given the shared ownership of franchises across both leagues, inevitably looms in the background somewhere, while also creating credible space between one operation and the other.While we’re on the subject: That strength does cut both ways. Engelbert’s successor doesn’t need to be the players’ new best friend, and WNBA players would do well to understand that.It is more than fair to ask for a commissioner who’s generally available and who genuinely listens to their concerns, particularly in a league half as large as most American men’s pro associations. But the leader of a sport has more important things to do than send birthday cards. If the WNBA is to become a global phenomenon — to the benefit of every player in it — there will be a lot of times when there’s no time to talk things out. And that’s going to have to be OK.(One semi-visionary-ish concept: The new commissioner hires a player experience liaison. Someone who constantly checks in around the league, who is known to have a direct line to the top of the org chart. If the commissioner can’t be everything to everyone, creating that role is at least a good-faith effort.)Credit Engelbert for some self-awareness, probably, that the WNBA was becoming too big for her to handle. And given the unbearable noise afflicting the sport the last few months, it’s hard to blame her for leaving it all for someone else to manage. She is doing everyone a favor, including herself. Her resignation creates an inflection point at the best possible time.By total coincidence, this appraisal of a defining moment in the WNBA’s timeline has been written with a view of the Toronto skyline, as the sun beats down upon one of the newest cities the league calls home. The Tempo are the first franchise outside of the United States, as the league begins a comprehensive international reach. The view is a sprawling reflection of what the WNBA aims to be.Engelbert was commissioner when the Toronto Tempo entered the league. She was on hand when the team played its inaugural game in early May. She was in charge of a goliath accounting company before she took a job leading a professional basketball league, and then that new job morphed into something else entirely, and she took it about as far as she could.It’s a transformative time for the WNBA. And the WNBA now must make a transformative choice and identify the person who sees everyone through it and beyond.