Board Thread:Episode Discussions/@comment-1018594-20151001190939/@comment-4849011-20151008002620

Fearlandscape wrote: We saw scenes in early episodes of people like Choji, Shikamaru and Kiba joking with Naruto on the playground, but that can be interpreted as them merely humoring him or tolerating him. Doesn't imply they were friends with him. We saw Kiba's true feelings about Naruto during their Exams match, IMO.

Regardless of whether or not Choji, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Naruto were what one would call friends, they were sort of grouped together because they were the biggest misfits in the class. There was the flashback to the leaf concentration practice (during the Rasengan training) showing the four being confronted by Iruka for being such screw-ups. They might not have all been friends, but they were put in the same boat.