Naw, Stringer, the original smart dumbass nikka, had more to do with it.
I don't know, but every year or so I rewatch the wire I think that Stringer is more delusional rather than being a smart dumb nikka. Avon had to eventually break the shyt down to Stringer that they were just dope dealers, because Stringer just didn't want to accept that they were just dope dealers. The nikka even invoked the Robert Rules of Order at a fukking Barksdale meeting and you just know that Stringer had to be involved in that stupid ass co-op shyt.
Now Cheese on the other hand was the original smart dumbass nikka. That dumbass never accounted for shyt like loyalty or underlying friendship among the drug dealers, which is why Slim Charles smoked his ass for setting up Prop Joe for Marlo to kill. Cheese never stopped and realized that the other drug dealers deep down actually liked Prop Joe's scheming fat ass.
On another point I liked parallel stories being run in the Wire in the drug dealers families. D had love and loyalty for his uncle Avon and D would never cross Avon and Avon knew it. Meanwhile Cheese had no love or loyalty for his uncle Prop Joe and it was not until Joe was going to be killed that he realized that his nephew had neither loyalty nor love for him. Prop Joe's death was hard for me to watch, because the betrayal by his nephew seem to hurt him more than the bullet.