What? On a fundamental level, this is completely incorrect. Actually, upon entering uni for example, many of the brighter people struggle because they actually need to start working hard when they could just cruise through earlier education. But many indeed to develop the work ethic necessary. I know so many examples that directly contradict what you're saying that I'm very surprised if that's considered general knowledge. All it takes is one moment where you realize that you actually need to work towards it. Will everyone get it? No, but a good amount will, and like I said, I'd much rather bet on that than bet on a bad player becoming good.
To me, I like to think like: "If he's this good with such a poor work ethic, imagine how good he'll become when he starts putting in the effort". On the other hand, if a player's bad in spite of putting in tons and tons of effort, that's not very promising to me. It's a very shortsighted way of looking at things to assume that people's mentality is fully matured at 18. It won't physiologically be until the 20s. Especially the frontal lobe develops slowly, which indeed is what comes to play for things such as these.
