He certainly has the genetic makeup to play ball - but unless he has been trained and his natural drives developed into basic skills he could never play professional ball. The same goes for good puppies. Without drive development and later training you just end up with a nice pet. Understanding drive thresholds is also not an easy concept. A drive threshold can be defined as the level of stimulation required for a drive to change.
Lets use defense and avoidance as an example.
The lower threshold of defense is the point where the dog begins to understand that it is being threatened and begins to bark with a serious defensive bark. We call this point the lower threshold. The upper threshold is the point where the dog is stressed to the point where it begins to show signs of avoidance. Here it may take a step back or get behind the handler or look away from the helper and ignore him or display a number of other signs of avoidance. We say we have reached a drive threshold just before the dog moves into defense and just before it moves into avoidance, or just before the intensity level changes within a drive.