Front left grinding sound, scraping, clunking, AHHHHHH Options

[blu94gt]

Ok so lately I've noticed with my car a lot of weird sounds. First there was a lot of clunking and whatnot, sounded exactly like a bad CV joint, so low and behold there was a loose boot on my axle that had leaked grease and messed up the joint so I replaced the axle, now there's a lot of scraping and grinding sounds coming from the front.

When I'm driving in a straight line and/or engage the clutch there's a popping sound from the front left wheel, and when I turn right it turns into like a metal on metal scraping sound. The wheel has a bit more resistance to turn than the right side when the car is in neutral and on a lift, and the whole wheel and hub gets physically very hot.

I'm thinking it's the wheel bearing, but is there anything else I should look for before going to the bother of replacing that front bearing?