The Portland Trail Blazers are severely short-handed, and in light of all the injuries the NBA has done something unprecedented for the hard-luck ballclub. The NBA has granted the Blazers a second hardship exemption in order to allow the team to go above the 15-man roster limit so that they could sign former Duke forward Shavlik Randolph to a non-guaranteed contract.

The 26-year old has appeared in 91 career NBA games over 5 seasons spent with the Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers, and Miami Heat. The Heat waived him earlier this season after just 2 appearances with the club. This stint will be Randolph's second with the Blazers after having played 10 games with the team last season.

It is peculiar that a team with as many injury concerns as Portland would sign a player who is known for being injury prone, but Kevin Pritchard likes the familiarity of Randolph with the team, and the club towards Shavlik.

Randolph has career averages of 2.4 points and 2.5 rebounds. Due to the fact that Randolph was signed with a hardship exemption, he must be released by the team once one of their injured players returns to the active list.