Nah... if I learned anything during the course of my grade school education it was the art of skimming.
If Genius were just potential then isn't every character in the series a genius. Why waste time on them if they weren't. I mean come on deep down you all know that Sakura will amount to something. Remeber the flashes we got during the Oro-Hokage fight. All the people were passing dowen kickass through the generations....Sakura was included as a student of Kakashi(who was taught by the 4th, who was taught be Jiyra, who was taught by the third, who was taught by 1st/2nd) .
The only person I've seen so far who seems to not be a genius (or genius in the making) is Iruka.