Naruto is indeed fortunate to have things happen to him the way they have, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot of determination and talent of his own. He's lucky he got Kage Bunshin so early on, but it still takes a lot of stamina to use such a move, it is a jounin level move after all. And while you can say that he has the Kyuubi chakra to help him out, like you also said, he was just lucky enough to start learning how to control it recently, since he ran into Jiraiya. Also, since he was sealed up during the prelims, his fight with Kiba was done all on his own, same with when he beat those illusionary guys in the forest. Yeah he beat Kiba with a fart, and had help from Sasuke and Kabuto in the forest, but it still took a lot of guts and stamina to do what he did. He's definately lucky to have met Jiraiya but if you think about it, it could have been not so lucky, if he hadn't been able to draw out the kyuubi chakra he would have died at the bottom of that cliff. Course it would seem that Naruto's own abilities aren't enough to match up to the likes of Neji, but Neji was "lucky" enough to grow up with the byakugan, so it's only fair that Naruto's luck of having the kyuubi chakra helps him whoop Neji's ass, well, at least I'm hoping Neji gets a whooping. The only person I want to see schooled worse then Neji is Gaara, but I don't know if Sasuke is even going to show at this point.