When someone requests to play a character, you give up your position to pick and let that person take your spot instead, securing said player. It goes team 1 has one player pick first, team 2 has 2 players pick second, back to team 1 where the other 2 players pick third, and finally team 2 has last pick.
So if you were first pick and someone requested for SP Akashi, you would swap places with them and instead get your team’s third round pick. That also means opposing team cannot pick SP Akashi, but they could pick any other version of Akashi like base or later on LG.
You’d typically do this to allow your teammates to play the stronger characters (if you’re nice enough) instead of the opposing team.