Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-24807838-20140816203900/@comment-25319350-20140818130029

Naruto was just neglected as a child. No one told him of his heritage, so as a child in the Academy, he had nothing to strive for, or even a standard to set himself to. There were four dead lasts in his class: Him, Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba. Shika, Cho, and Kiba were genuinely lazy, but because none of the teachers would really take the time to help Naruto and fix his shortcomings, he lost any motivation to actually learn. I'm pretty sure that if Iruka and/or the Hokage had been more proactive during Naruto's development, he would've been even better than Sasuke.