"Gifted children are "gifted" with a laser focus on the unusual things that they find fun - math, music, what-have-you. They spend countless hours playing with numbers or with music, while little Johnny is playing with a ball."

If you read Ericsson's papers, he does in fact specifically deny any role to talent and genes, by name, unequivocally. It's not a strawman, it's what he really believes. Deliberate practice is also falsified by Hambrick's meta-analyses: it does not explain much of difference in performance compared to talent. They are not gifted with 'a laser focus', they are gifted with things like intelligence.