Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-24807838-20140816203900/@comment-1018594-20140817184037

It's not that Naruto was untalented, he was just a late bloomer. Given that on top of the fact that nobody wanted anything to do with him for the majority of his early life, it's easily to see why he was considered "stupid" next to natural-born geniuses like Sasuke and Neji. He never really had someone pay special attention to him until Jiraiya came along.