I hear it a lot in Manu ginobili and James harden. Any idea what it means and how do you develop it??

Here is an article about Harden - being crafty for a player (at least to me) seems like he finds a way to score/succeed in spite of his shortcomings. Like the articel states, he can work on those areas.... in the mean time... him playing to his strengths would be crafty.... I call it PLAYING SMART. How do you develop it in players? Again, JMO, you get them to understand their strengths and weaknesses, stay away from things you can/dont do well.
Being crafty to me, means knowing your opponnet and how to exploit their weaknesses in a way that allows you to score and be successful. That goes with experience, trial and error for awhile.

As players and coaches we all make mistakes ( I think I made one Joe LOL ) and we learn from them. We log them in our brain and work to correct them. Don Kelbick had a couple of great quotes - " IF you don't want to miss a shot, simple, DON'T SHOOT. IF you don't want to make any mistakes, simple, DON'T PLAY! "

I hope this helps in answering your question.

•James Harden’s situational statistics should ease many of the concerns teams have about his game. It appears that he's one of those players who "finds a way to get by" despite his shortcomings.

Very efficient, while maintaining fairly high usage rates, Harden made 47% of his shots in logged possessions –an excellent percentage for a two. None of the 5 players who used as many possessions as Harden (Marcus Thornton, Jermaine Taylor, Jodie Meeks, Jerel McNeal, Dar Tucker) were as efficient as he was from the field. Out of those players, only Meeks' PPP was higher than Harden’s, thanks to how many 3's he made, while Thornton matched him at 1 PPP.

A lot of Harden’s efficiency comes from an area that most probably wouldn’t expect it to. In spite of his perceived athletic limitations, Harden was a terrific finisher around the basket this season. Not only did he get to the rim more than any other player on our list (8.7 Pos/G), he ranked in first comfortably at 1.25 PPP. Considering the questions surrounding his ability to translate his finishing ability to the NBA, these numbers can only help his cause. Ironically, they don’t seem to offer much support for one of his bigger perceived strengths.

Harden's biggest shortcoming ended up being in the perimeter shooting department. He was terrific on the very few catch and shoot opportunities he received with his feet set (2.4 Pos/G), but really struggled when being contested (.85 PPP) or shooting off the dribble (.73 PPP). In fact, the 27% he shot from the field off the dribble is the lowest of any of the nineteen players in our sample. Fortunately for Harden, this is clearly a part of his game he can work on, but he'll have to put in the appropriate time in the gym. In terms of things a team can count on him to do well in the short-run, his ability to score with space deserves consideration at the top of that list.

Harden's intelligence and excellent skill-level really shine through in his ability to score in transition--which was an important part of his game in college. He ranks behind only Wayne Ellington (who obviously had a big advantage playing under Roy Williams' up-tempo system with Ty Lawson) in this category at 1.22 PPP.

Something NBA types will be happy to learn is that Harden created quite a bit of offense by himself in isolation type situations—his 5.2 possessions per game ranks just behind Dar Tucker amongst the 19 we looked at. He still has quite a bit of room to improve here, though, only ranking 7th in PPP with .89. We should point out that three of the players (Paul Harris, Alex Ruoff and Eric Devendorf) ranked ahead of him here were very low usage types—the only two who really stand out as being superior in this aspect are Jeff Teague (5 possessions per game, 1.08 PPP) and Jack McClinton (4 possessions per game, 1.07 PPP). Harden turns the ball over at a fairly high rate, and isn't as effective driving right (39% FG) as he is going left (44% FG)—which makes sense since he’s left-handed. He also doesn't draw quite as many fouls as you might hope. However, it is more than safe to say that Harden could be a very effective offensive player if team’s put him position to succeed.
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