​WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert acknowledged room for improvement in communication with players. (Photo by Sage Zipeto/Getty Images)Sage Zipeto via Getty ImagesCHICAGO — The league’s elite players want personalized check-ins beyond congratulations on their accomplishments. They open their phones to check texts and scroll social media. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert figured they wouldn’t want to hear from her and the league all the time. She sits at a computer and sends emails to relay major information. You see the problem. There is a clear disconnect between Engelbert and players, despite an overall thawing of tensions four months after signing a collective bargaining agreement. It plays out in headlines, Instagram stories and social media posts because this is a professional sports league, and conflict creates noise. In the WNBA players’ case, noise results in change. The tweaks here are minor, considering the sides that were once on the brink of a work stoppage appear to be on better terms. Cathy Engelbert hugs All-Star Game MVP Jonquel Jones during the trophy presentation. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)Geoff Stellfox via Getty ImagesThere were no bold claims about poor leadership, nor accusations of bad-faith acts during Friday’s player media portion of All-Star weekend. No feelings were harmed in the unzippering of warm-ups in the vein of last year’s “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts. It is far from a consensus affirmation of the job Engelbert has done, and she herself remained noncommittal on her 2027 job status when asked directly for a third time in as many state-of-the-league addresses. But it was a refreshingly calmer tone. “Cathy has done a lot to really get us to this point,” Stewart said this weekend. “Obviously, she was across the table during those CBA negotiations and eventually we got to a historic deal, and I think there’s flowers that need to be given all around in order for this deal to really happen.” The movement on this particular issue need not be as transformational as the CBA that paid out each All-Star $15,000 for participating. As with all of their paychecks in this new era of labor peace, it’s significantly larger than in years past. Individual winners over the weekend made bank. Money does solve some problems. It can only do so much about bettering communication in the ways those involved want to receive it. And times are far different from the days of the legends who helped jump-start the 30-year-old league.“It’s friendly when you see each other, but it’s not like I was calling [former WNBA president] Val Ackerman [or] [former president] Donna Orender, no,” Aces head coach and former New York Liberty star Becky Hammon said. “I don’t know what the temperature is like now, but you have to understand too, [we were] just getting phones. I was still carrying out CD packets with movies in it. It was just a completely different world.”Listen closely to any of