In warmups before a recent Washington Wizards exhibition game, Paul Pierce became one of the biggest instigators of an impromptu dunk contest.

Bradley Beal, John Wall, Marcin Gortat and Otto Porter all zipped through, executing highlight-reel dunks. Pierce then grabbed the ball, streaked into the lane and delivered an emphatic ... finger roll.

"I'm saving my jumps for the game, when they count," Pierce shot back. "Those guys can jump around all day. I don't have jumps to spare. But hell yeah, I can still do it."

Yeah, right.

Then the game started and Pierce rejected two shots in the first quarter, including a chase-down block in transition that he swatted off the glass.

"Paul acted like he was 18 again," a beaming Beal said. "And that's the highest I've ever seen him jump before. That shows he's out there to be a key part of this team. For him to actually chase down a block in a preseason game shows a lot about his commitment and his character."

The age jokes can get harsh at 37 years old. Case in point: Pierce recently heard his new teammates cracking up when someone joked that Beal hadn't started kindergarten when the Boston Celtics selected Pierce with the No. 10 pick of the 1998 draft.

Only it wasn't a joke. Beal, now 21, was 4 years old at the time.

"It goes by so fast," Pierce said. "It's crazy now, being around a lot of these young guys. And they're like, 'I remember when I was little and watching you play back in the day.' And I'm like, 'Really? I guess you're right.' I'm 17 years in. A lot of these guys were probably still drinking milk from their baby bottles, still breastfeeding, man."

Pierce spent the first 15 of those 17 NBA seasons in Boston, winning a title and cementing future Hall of Fame status. But he has since become something of a basketball nomad, plying his famous step-back jumpers from the elbow for a new team each of the past two seasons.

He and Kevin Garnett were traded last offseason to the Brooklyn Nets for a bounty of draft picks and assets in a bold, win-now move. Pierce appeared in 75 games for Brooklyn in 2013-14, including 68 starts, and played a large part in righting the Nets' sinking season by embracing a stretch-4 role, but his individual numbers sank to career lows (13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 28 minutes a game, a 16.81 player efficiency rating) and the team was bounced from the playoffs in the second round.

With Brooklyn luxury tax burdened for the foreseeable future, Pierce looked elsewhere in free agency. The Wizards signed him to a two-year, $10.8 million contract in July with hopes the veteran swingman could spark an offense that endured anemic stretches late in games last season, including multiple times in the fourth quarter during their second-round playoff series loss to the Indiana Pacers.

"We have a lot of talent, but there was one thing we didn't have last year: At the end of the game, we didn't really have a guy we could throw the ball to who had the experience to take over," Gortat said. "Now, we have a guy who can do something for us. We'll throw it to [Pierce]. He's going to do his shimmy-shimmy stuff and get us a bucket."

That presence was on display last week in Orlando, where the Wizards (3-1) nearly squandered a 17-point lead in the second half before they turned to Pierce late in the fourth quarter. Washington fed the ball to Pierce in isolation on three consecutive possessions in the final two minutes.

He set up at the midpost, backed down his defender and hit two jumpers to help secure a 105-98 win.

"He did what 'The Truth' does," Wall said. "Make tough shots."

Even when everyone in the building knows what's coming.

"Paul is going to do everything at his speed -- two miles per hour -- and get us a bucket," Gortat said.

When one of the Wizards' younger players suggested in the locker room after the game that it was an example of Pierce turning back the clock, the proud veteran protested.

"I don't agree," Pierce said. "I mean, turn back the clock for what? I never went nowhere. I've still been here. I was doing that last year, the year before that and the year before that."

The Wizards have been down this road before. Future Hall of Famers have passed through Washington late in their careers, but none have been able to translate it to postseason success. It didn't work when Bernard King arrived in his early 30s during the late 1980s, or when Mitch Richmond showed up in his mid-30s during the late 1990s. Not even a twice-retired Michael Jordan could make much of an impact on the standings in the early 2000s.

How can Pierce?

"The difference is, we already have our anchors in Wall and Beal," said Phil Chenier, a shooting guard on Washington's 1978 NBA championship team and a local television analyst for the past three decades. "When Bernard came, he was our new identity. When Mitch came, we were still expecting him to be a 20-point scorer every night. And even Michael, even though he retired and came back again and again, he was still MJ, and that expectation to be MJ was there."

Paul Pierce doesn't intend to go silently into the night. At age 37, he's still looking for more success. Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

"Paul still has a lot to offer. But he's not coming to save a team. He's coming to supplement a team that was very close a year ago to the conference finals."

That was the plan, at least. With Beal out for most of November after preseason surgery on a broken left wrist and Martell Webster still recovering from back surgery, there will be no shortage of opportunities for Pierce to get acclimated. Though he was ejected from the Wizards' home opener for arguing a call, the veteran forward is averaging 16.7 points on 11 shots in 30.3 minutes in the team's other three games this season.

Still, it's been an adjustment for Pierce, whose wife and three young children are still settling into a home in McLean, Virginia, a suburb just outside of Washington. It's an adjustment Bob McAdoo knows all too well. With a résumé that already included three scoring titles, a league MVP award, NBA rookie of the year honors and stints with five teams by the time he got to the Los Angeles Lakers in the early 1980s, McAdoo initially was offended by the role he was handed by the budding "Showtime" dynasty.

"Politics play a role in everything, and I saw that," McAdoo said. "They brought me off the bench. I was going crazy inside. I never liked it. But I did it because the big picture was about winning a championship. When you get to that stage of a career ... I wasn't going to blow that just because I wanted to start."

Now a scouting executive with the Miami Heat after a long coaching career, McAdoo watched the Wizards during the preseason and envisions Pierce imparting the same leadership on Beal and Wall that he tried to extend 30 years ago to developing Lakers superstars such as Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Byron Scott.

"They'll listen," McAdoo said. "But they'll watch your example more. These guys watched you before they came into the league. No complaints. Just fit in and be productive."

The Wizards already have taken notice of Pierce, whose methods and message hit the mark. A throwback work ethic allows this classic Atari of a hoopster to be compatible with generation Xbox.

"He leads by example as one of the first guys at practice every day," Wizards coach Randy Wittman said. "So those intangibles, his voice and stuff like that, right now, are used by us more than his actual physical skills on the floor."

And Pierce hasn't been shy about making his presence known, either.