Remember when Jimmer Fredette was required viewing? I once watched him play in the wee hours of an Abu Dhabi morning … because I just wanted to see his act.

It was March of 2011, during the NCAA playoffs. That was the season in which he led the NCAA in scoring at 28.9 points per game, more than four points better than any other collegiate player, and helped get BYU to the final Sweet 16 for the first time since 1981.

And then?

Jimmer went 10th in the NBA draft, to Sacramento, but he never really showed he could play in the world’s top league. The Kings gave him two-plus seasons to become a significant contributor, but he never got there because he struggled to score, and scoring is about 99 percent of his game.

By the end of the 2015-16 NBA season, when he had played for five teams in four seasons, his options looked limited to D-League stuff. In August he revealed he was joining the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association.

And today, he scored 73 points for Shanghai in a double-overtime road loss in the Chinese league, where Jimmer is one of the leading scorers (38 ppg) and, also, the star he never has been in the NBA.

Jimmer, now 27, may have found his niche.

The Shanghai club is owned by Yao Ming, the 7-footer who had several excellent seasons with the Houston Rockets. The Sharks not only play in the most populous (25 million) city in the world, they are said to be the league’s most professional club.

They are paying Jimmer “something north of $1 million” for this season — the first time Jimmer has made $1 million or more since his second season in the NBA.

Jimmer gets to do, in China, what coaches would not allow him to do in the NBA, which is to shoot the ball nearly every time he has it in the attacking end.

In his 73-point game today, he was 25-for-49 from the field, including 10-for-18 from three-point range. He sank all 13 free throws.

(In his NBA time, he shot only 41.2 percent from the field and 38.3 from three, averaging 6.0 points over 235 NBA games.)

The China scoring record is 82 points in a game, by Errick McCollum; Jimmer’s 73 is fourth all-time.

He has been coy about committing to Shanghai or China, but perhaps he should reconsider that.

Watching him play, via YouTube (scoring 51 against Guangdong), shows a guy with a great repertoire of shots (he won the CBA three-point-shooting competition at the All-Star Game) … but also a player with limited physical gifts.

He has obvious issues with quickness and speed; he gets shots in China that he would be unlikely to get in the NBA.

He just a bit taller than 6 feet and is not known for being able to guard anyone, nor is he likely to contribute meaningfully in assists or rebounds. Not in the NBA.

In China? That’s different. He looks confident in an environment that looks rather like his college experience — smaller, slower players, on the whole, and lots of open looks.

Jimmer has said he would like to return to the NBA, and he envisions himself as a sixth-man sort of guy, a high-energy off-the-bench scorer who would bomb away from behind the arc.

And maybe he can talk someone into that. Scoring 73 got him onto the espn.com home page ahead of the NBA All-Star Game, and was his biggest attention-getting performance since scoring 33 for Shanghai against Houston in an exhibition game back in October.

Yahoo!Sports suggests Jimmer “can make millions in endorsements in China. With 1.3 billion people in a country that often looks to the West for its cultural influences, China is a blank slate for Fredette, especially if he signs another contract with Shanghai.”

It is understandable that he believes he can still play in the NBA. But how many more times can he turn down $1 million (or more) to play in China? How much sense does it make for him to knock around the D-League, hoping for a 10-day contract back in the States?

Jimmer Fredette was meant to score, and in China he is doing just that. Seems like a good place for him.