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Yes, that’s exactly how the salary cap works! The salary cap is a daily calculation based on each day of the season. By virtue of the pro-rating math, space not used can be used later in the season. For example, if a team was $1 million under the cap for the first half of the season, they could be over the cap by $1 million for the second half.

However, the real advantage comes from the fact that a $2 million cap hit player traded halfway through the season will only be on the new team’s cap for $1 million ($2 million x 50% of days). Therefore, if a team is $1 million under the cap halfway through the season, they could add a $2 million cap hit player at that point which only adds $1 million of cap hit through the end of the year.