There has been a troubling series occurring on the rather popular PHNX YouTube and Social Media accounts – Greg Esposito, better known as Espo, has been doing some rankings on the “Southwest Bias” show.
To strum up engagement, Espo has began doing different rankings and groupings to stir up some controversy and get some sweet, sweet engagement. That’s right, this is all rage bait. It is still the offseason but things are picking up; this is the perfect time to post content that gets people talking and debating the topic, bringing people to the site. That also does not excuse these lists from being putrid.
That being said, they are accomplishing their goal, the first of which has over 203K engagements on the X post alone:
“Who’d we leave off?”
For starters, you left off the BEST second basemen in all of Major League Baseball. Ketel Marte is the heart and soul of the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that played in a World Series in 2023. Ketel Marte was the best player on that team and has consistently been the best player on the Arizona Diamondbacks. If you are only going to include a single Diamondback, it has to be Ketel Marte.
Marte is the best second basement in the MLB and is capable of winning the MVP if things fall his way in any given season. Not including Ketel Marte is a travesty particularly when guys like Kyler Murray are on this list. Kyler Murray is not a good NFL quarterback. If you spoke to 10 different Cardinals fans, odds are 5 or 6 would tell you he needs to leave.
I am not going to crap on James Conner, I am a Steelers fan and have a deep admiration for Conner, but he should not be on this list over a guy like Ketel Marte. He is not in that stratosphere. Marte is a SUPERSTAR and has been playing for the Diamondbacks at an ELITE level for almost 10 years now.
Another one: Where is Tetairoa McMillan?
McMillan was the 8th overall pick and one of the most beloved Arizona Wildcats in a long time. TMac came in a 5 star recruit and immediately was dominant. He leaves the Cats as the record holder in career receiving yards, single-game receiving yards, a consensus All-American, and was the highest drafted player by either of the major Arizona universities since 1990. Tetairoa McMillan is one of the most accomplished players in recent memory within either major Arizona university, leaving him off is a horrible decision.
This list was met with major controversy, which led to fellow PHNX personalities putting out their own lists in response. Today, another post dropped:
Espo did it once again, another horrible list. “The Face of the State” is headlined by Devin Booker; Booker being at the top of what I assume is a mountain makes sense. Basketball is a flashy sport, Booker is an elite player, he is a large brand nationally, makes sense. After that though, he loses me.
Again with the Ketel Marte slander. Believe me, I am a big Corbin Carroll fan, but he is not as good nor as beloved by the state as Ketel is. The worst of that second tier is Kenny Dillingham. How a coach is placed above a guy that is possibly a top 10 player in his sport is beyond me. Particularly when said coach has a head coaching record of 14-12. You have a guy who has been elite for 9 seasons now and you put him behind a coach with 2 seasons under his belt and one was an absolute disaster. Make that make sense. Ranking coaches in this type of list is stupid to begin with, but to put Marte behind Dillingham is just dumb.
My next big issue with this list is Tommy Lloyd being in the bottom tier. Tommy Lloyd is a gold medalist head coach for Team USA Basketball, has won multiple conference championships, has a record of 112-33 with multiple post-season victories, recruits at a top 10 level, and is the head coach of the most consistently great team in this state. There is not a program or team, college or pro, that stacks up to Arizona Basketball and this man is doing a fantastic job coaching it.
If you are going to put Dillingham in on the second tier (again, which is dumb anyways) then Tommy Lloyd has to be above the bottom tier. You have the most successful coach in this state next to a MASCOT, a head coach that has never had a winning record in a season nor made the playoffs, and Mat Ishbia. Ishbia essentially ruined the Suns franchise for a decade plus due to his stupid decision making but he is on the same tier as Lloyd. Right.
I then look above him, you have Kyler Murray, Marvin Harrison Jr., Trey McBride, and Alyssa Thomas all above him. I will start with Kyler – he sucks. Nobody thinks Kyler Murray is good anymore, why is he on either list?
Marvin Harrison Jr. has done nothing to deserve being on this list at all to be frank. What has Harrison Jr. done in his single season for the Cardinals? He was drafted high and then overshadowed by at least 3 other rookie receivers. He has accomplished next to nothing but he is higher than possibly the current most accomplished person in sports for this State?
Trey McBride is a tight end. He is not even one of the most popular players on his own team, much less in this state. He has been here 3 seasons and only 2 of which were actually good. When I look up Trey McBride on Wikipedia, it shows him playing basketball. That shows how much people think about Trey McBride.
Alyssa Thomas is an AWESOME player, but she has only been here for a single season. I’m not going to talk about her as a player, but can you really represent the state when you were just traded here in February? She has played 26 total games for an Arizona-based team. How does she qualify to be above Tommy Lloyd, who has been doing great things for 4 seasons now and will be coaching his 5th shortly? She should be on this list, she is a really good player, but to put her above someone that much more established within this state is just a insane decision.
I head to Instagram and see Espo giving some reasoning and logic on his decision making, replying to a commenter:
If that’s your logic, sure. Tommy Lloyd is one of the biggest names in college basketball coaching, but you don’t watch so that’s fine. Your picks don’t reflect that though, who is talking about the Phoenix Suns Gorilla mascot at the moment? The team is irrelevant at the moment due to Ishbia tanking any chance to win a championship so again, who is talking about the Phoenix Suns mascot? If that’s the methodology behind your rankings then that’s fine, but the application of said methodology is flawed. It’s particularly flawed when he points to Lloyd not being higher due to not being in season:
So when the Suns season starts, does the Gorilla mascot get moved higher? It’s objectively difficult to understand the logic behind this as there has been numerous lines of thinking behind this put out there.
To be frank, this is all rage bait and I do not really get the point of doing so. PHNX covers University of Arizona Athletics and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Ketel Marte slander is horrible but he is at least somewhat recognized.
The Arizona Wildcats were not represented on the first list and on the other were completely disrespected. Tommy Lloyd is more accomplished than essentially anyone on that list. You can stack resumes of all individuals on that list, and he would have a far more impactful resume than anyone else on this list. You put a player that has played basketball for a couple months in this state over him, what are we doing here?
This isn’t the first time him or his entity was disrespectful to the Arizona Wildcats. In 2023, he was heavily involved in a list ranking the Top 25 greatest athletes in this state’s history: https://gophnx.com/the-25-greatest-athletes-in-arizona-sports-history/
He has 7 Arizona State Sun Devils and 2 Arizona Wildcats. Arizona owns the record in almost every sport against Arizona State and has numerous legendary figures left off, with the biggest being Mike Bibby. Mike Bibby is the best high school basketball player in this state’s history and the face of the only revenue sport national championship either major university has won.
They include James Harden on their list who in the grand scheme of things, didn’t have any impact on Arizona State basketball. They didn’t win anything while he was there, they didn’t become a better program because Harden played there, nothing really was impacted. Bibby changed Arizona Athletics. He brought a championship to a state that had not ever seen one before. If you include James Harden, you have to include Mike Bibby as he actually changed athletics within this state.
I do not really understand why there is a need to rage bait the Wildcat fans on X with these posts. Your entity covers those teams and pissing off the UofA fanbase online (where your content is primarily distributed) is going to lead to people not wanting to consume your content. What’s even worse is Espo is an Arizona Alum and actively chooses to rage bait when it does not really make sense for the business model his entity is trying to push. One would think you would try to expand your markets, not push markets out and make people actively go against you.
How do I know this is engagement/rage bait? He essentially said it himself:
“Love and hate pay the same in this business” so you admit you don’t care to put out meaningful takes then. You’re just trying to get clicks and attention. It’s shameless.
These were some of the worst lists ever and I feel like I wasted 30 minutes of my time writing this. I actively gave into the goal of these posts by giving them attention, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this. It would seem Espo rather does not know ball or he is making a stupid business decision, actively trying to piss off an entire fanbase of a team his entity covers.
Follow @___koby___ and @FrontPorchU on X for some more fantastic content.